Apple to bring new parental controls to protect teens online

The Internet not only houses vast resources of knowledge and entertainment, but also serves as a virtual bridge, allowing people to connect with anyone anywhere in the world.

However, if we are not careful enough, we have to pay a heavy price; particularly if it is a child or teenager with no awareness about the potential dangers of predators prowling on social media platforms and the dark web.

Technology giant Apple, known for its strong user privacy policy, has announced that it will be bringing new parental control features to protect children from such dangers lurking online.

It also brings improvements to Child Accounts. For the uninitiated, Apple offers Child Accounts for kids under the age of 13 (and up to 18) which can only be set up by the parent.

Now, the Child Account can be linked to a Family account with the father, mother, siblings, and grandparents. With this measure, guardians will be able to access all the parental controls in one place.

Apple's new parental control feature offer new option to add age-range so that age-inappropriate apps don't appear on App Store.

And, for app downloads, parents can control which app the child can download on his/her device. Parents can set up age ranges in the child's account and ensure only age-appropriate apps will be visible on the Apple App Store.

Another notable announcement from Apple is that Child Accounts with an age range from 13 to 17 will be protected with filters to ensure only age-appropriate content can be viewed on the web or any app on the device. Previously, it was default protection for accounts under the age of 13.

Currently, Apple App Store has four age ratings-- 4+, 9+, 12+ and 17+. By the end of this year, Apple App Store will have five age ratings-- 4+, 9+, 13+, 16+, and 18+.

Apple's new parental control makes it mandatory for children to ask permission from parent to message or call from unknown numbers.

Also, Apple is bringing new limits to communication requests. Currently, the Communication Limits feature offers parents the ability to manage when their kids can communicate with others, applying limits across Phone, FaceTime, Messages, and iCloud contacts.

Later this year, an additional limit will be introduced wherein children must send requests to their parents when they want to communicate with new phone numbers. Parents can approve or reject with just a single tap on their device.

With the new update, parents will get the power to revoke the Screen Time permission at any time of the day. And, the child will no longer be able to use the app on iPhone or iPad.

And, Communication Safety expands to intervene when nudity is detected in FaceTime video calls and to blur out nudity in Shared Albums in Photos.

The new parental control features will be coming with new iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26 later this year around September.

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