How To Secure Your Kid's iPhone

Parental controls are a real boon for those looking to protect kids from online scariness—or to take control over how kids use the internet and their devices, from the home PC to tablets and smartphones.

You can install third-party parental control apps, which will handle your family’s full suite of desktop and mobile devices. But what if you’re not into paying extra? There are tools across the various operating systems to make it easier, but they can be hard to implement in a techno-blended family of Macs, Androids, iPhones, and Windows PCs.

But if you’re an Apple family, you may find there are ways to make thing safer without any add-ons. Apple built a lot of tools and features into iOS that can help a beleaguered parental unit get through the day with fewer worries. Nothing beats a frank, face-to-face talk with kids about what is good for them online and what isn’t. But when that doesn’t help, here’s how you can lock down their iPhones for your peace of mind.

This article assumes that you—as the parent or guardian—have full access to your kids’ iOS devices, enough so that you can physically access them and set up limitations on what the phone can or cannot do. Instructions are for iOS 10+.

PASSCODE CONUNDRUMS

The first action you generally should perform when your kid gets their own iOSbased device is create an Apple ID just for them. It’s easier than sharing yours; the trick is to restrict them from doing too much (that’s the next section).

Then to secure the iOS devices at the most basic level, give the device a passcode. Older iOS devices used 4-digit passcodes, like the personal identification number (PIN) you use at the ATM machine. As of iOS 9, the default changed to a six-digit passcode, which is literally 100 times harder to crack, though you can still stick with four digits. There are even stronger options—a custom numeric code, or a custom alphanumeric code with a combination of letters and numbers and even special characters (but not emoji).