Kids can now ask to browse specific websites and contact specific people.
At WWDC 26, Apple announced changes to give parents more control over what their kids see and do. The company is broadening its “Ask” feature beyond simply giving adults a say about what apps their kids download. Kids will be able to petition their parents to visit a specific website which is otherwise outside their filters. Similarly, if a child account user wants to initiate contact with an unknown contact, a parent will have to give approval before they can chat.
As part of the improvements to child safety, Apple is also preemptively warning kids against potentially harmful photos. As part of this, any image sent to their device which its system thinks may contain inappropriate content will be automatically filtered. The company added that this system will also work on live FaceTime calls, censoring footage that the system thinks is inappropriate. And that doesn’t just extend to adult content, but images of gore and violence as well.
In addition, Apple is redesigning Screen Time to be more comprehensive than before, allowing far more nuance in how parents set their kids’ device access. That includes the ability to set discrete time allowances for separate experiences, such as entertainment, games and social media. Not to mention, getting far more fine-grain control over schedules across days, given the rules may be different for a kid during the school week than they are on the weekend.
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