SebastianCat Posted August 30, 2013 Share Posted August 30, 2013 Just how safe are parental controls on an iPod? Can you suggest a way to truly make it safe for a pre-teen? My kids (who are 11 and 9) each have an iPod touch. I have disabled Safari using the standard parental controls, and *thought* that by doing this, there would be no internet access. One of my children has recently shown me a "back door" through an app - if you click on an external link, Safari opens and you are on the internet. I'm concerned because it does not appear that you can set up age-appropriate restrictions through Safari. All of the "parental control" apps that I've looked at (Mobicip, Net Nanny, Covenant Eyes) do NOT monitor, nor do they seem to block, anything in Safari. They each have their OWN browser which allows filtered internet access......but anytime you click a link from an outside app, Safari opens by default. Looking a few years down the road, I see that as a HUGE red flag - if my kids know how to bypass the parental controls, sooner or later the temptation to do just that will present itself, and they just aren't mature enough yet to handle that. Please correct me if my information is incorrect. I want my kids to be able to use technology safely, but at their current ages I don't feel comfortable giving them free access to the internet. But at the same time I don't want to take everything away in a knee-jerk reaction - because my child came to me honestly and showed me what was found - which I feel is HUGE. My kids have a laptop with parental controls that I feel very comfortable with, and the laptop is in a public area of the house. But the iPods end up in bedrooms, which are most definitely NOT public. So is there anything out there that will make an iPod safe? Would an Android tablet offer better options for parental control or oversight? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommyof4ks Posted August 30, 2013 Share Posted August 30, 2013 Android devices are generally worse with parental controls, and then you also get more viruses (they have cornered 79% of the virus market on mobile devices vs the 1% on apple devises), and viruses can sometimes contain p*rn (no need to ask how I know this, sigh). Thank you for the heads up about back doors. I had no idea. I do know that many Internet filters do list all sites that users looked at, and that filters at the router level can help. I have no idea how to set up router filters though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
City Mouse Posted August 30, 2013 Share Posted August 30, 2013 Don't give them the pass code to your wifi? But they could still connect to wifi that is unsecured. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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