How good is Google's Parental Control

Not long ago, Google released a parental control system called Google Family Link. According to the developers, it works on Android 7 and newer versions.

The program is so deeply integrated into the Android system that it cannot be removed even after flashing the phone. The system requires separate Google accounts for the parent and child's phones. The Google Family Link app must be installed on both the parent and child devices. The control settings are configured online by synchronizing with the child's Google account. When a Google account is created for a person under 12 years old, the Google Family Link service is automatically activated.

In summary, the program's features include:

• Limits Google Search, Google Play Store, and Google Chrome by applying filters and blocking adult content.
• Prohibits children from installing programs.
• Limits app usage time.
• Shows the current location of the child.
• Parents receive notifications about the user's actions.
• Informs the child about what the parents can see and what they are allowed and not allowed to do.

Now let's describe these and other features of the program in detail.

Safe Search.

After installing and applying the default settings, the child will not be able to find 18+ information in Google Search. If the child tries to enter a forbidden website directly, the Google browser will request permission from the parent.

 

How reliable is this filter? Practice shows that it is possible to bypass it if you disable the Google account during the search. To do this, you need to click on the Google icon and then on the account icon. In the list that appears, select the option to Work without an account.

 

Now, adult information will become available in Google Search. In particular, it will be possible to view 18+ images. However, accessing adult websites requires an alternative browser to Google Chrome. Therefore, parents should disable all other browsers except for Google Chrome.

App Blocking

To do this, launch Family Link on the parent's phone, select the child (there can be several), and find Apps.

 

Click on All Apps and next to the browser's name click on the hourglass and select Block.

 

Blocking the app removes the shortcut from the screen and the entry from the list of installed apps. For third-party apps, this means uninstallation.

If the app is allowed again, it will reappear on the screen.

YouTube, like Google Chrome, will also not allow viewing adult videos.

 

Thus, this feature works reliably.

Prevents children from installing programs.

When trying to install any program from the Play Store, a request for permission from the parent appears.

 

Thus, the child cannot install a browser or a messenger that bypasses Google’s filters. Installing apps from external storage also requires parent permission.

Time Limits for App Usage

To preserve children's health, our parents used to simply turn off the TV and send us out to play. In Google Family Link, it is possible to completely block any non-system app or set a time limit for it. In addition, you can set time limits for using all phone apps except dialing and contacts.

We've already talked about app blocking, but to limit app usage to a few hours, you need to do the following:

Time Limit for an App

Select the group member (child) and find the All Apps option.

Select the app and click on the hourglass next to it. Select the Set Limit option.

 

You can restrict the total time using the app per day, which will certainly positively impact the child's eyesight and instill discipline. However, you cannot configure when the child will use this app, whether at night or during the day.

Time Limit for the Entire Phone

This option allows you to completely prohibit running any apps, leaving the phone usable only for calls, both incoming and outgoing. To do this, on the parent’s phone in the Family Link app, you should find the Daily Limit group and click the Edit link.

 

For each day of the week, you can limit the total time using phone apps. For all remaining time, it will simply be a phone.

Additionally, you can set a strict bedtime so that the child doesn’t damage their eyesight at night. This is very useful for training circadian rhythms.

 

If it seems that the child is clearly abusing the phone, you can remotely block all programs permanently and unblock them again on command from the parent phone.

 

However, there is one danger. If the parent’s phone gets lost or becomes unavailable, the child’s phone will remain just a phone. Remote unlocking from the server is not provided.

Getting the Current Location of the Child.

If the child gets lost in the city, in the forest, or is prone to skipping classes, this option will come in handy. The child's coordinates are displayed as soon as we open their profile in the parent app. If you click on their current location, Google Maps will open with more detailed information.

 

However, this option has its drawbacks.

Firstly, only the last known location of the child's phone is displayed. It is unclear where they were half an hour ago.

Secondly, obtaining coordinates is only possible if the child’s phone is connected to the network. Thus, in the forest or city, the child must have mobile internet enabled to transmit the coordinates. Usually, children "consume" all mobile traffic by watching YouTube videos or playing online games. Often after this, they go into negative and cannot even make a call, even though they have minutes included in their plan. If a truant doesn’t want to be found, they just need to turn off Wi-Fi and mobile data, making them completely unreachable to you.

Parent Notifications about the Child’s Actions.

Normally, the program notifies that there is no data for today, but when we click on Show History, it displays app usage statistics for the last few days.

 

From the obtained data, one can generally judge how long each program has been used, but no actions of the child are available. In other words, you will not see which videos they watched on YouTube, which websites they visited in Chrome, and what they wrote to friends in emails and messengers.

Informing the Child about Allowed and Prohibited Activities.

The child also sees the Google Family Link icon on the screen. Clicking on it, they can see which actions are allowed and prohibited. The list of applications includes blocked apps.

 

 

Furthermore, the duration of possible app usage and sleep mode are specified. In fact, the child sees the same information as the parents, just without the ability to change anything.

Now let’s draw some conclusions.

The advantages of the Google Family Link program undoubtedly include the reliable blocking of unwanted apps and websites. The program is so deeply embedded in Android that it cannot be removed from the latest phones even by resetting to factory settings. Thus, it creates an ideal sandbox from which one cannot escape.

However, children grow up, and over time, their worldview expands to the point that they feel cramped in such a sandbox. A subconscious desire to break out emerges. It becomes particularly painful for them when they see what is available on their peers’ gadgets that is not accessible to them. Believe me, soon the child will acquire a new device that they won’t let their parents touch.

But let's return to the Family Link program. While showing how much time the child has spent on apps, the tracking agent does not display the history of websites visited, searches, and films watched on YouTube. To see all this, the parent must have either another phone or a separate browser on the computer where they can use the child's gmail account to see their history. Agree, this is inconvenient; there is a flaw here.

Having such a large set of tools, Google developers failed to include keylogging, that is, the collection of text typed by the child. It would be very interesting to see what our child writes to their interlocutors.

Another topic is social networks. They have become so ingrained in our lives that it is hard to imagine a child without an account on Facebook or Snapchat.

So what does Family Link provide? - Nothing. We simply see that the child opened Facebook. No contacts, no screenshots, no chats. Another drawback.

Photos and call records. Developers explicitly state that Family Link does not do this. Of course, one can log into the child's account and check Google Photos, but synchronization is disabled by default.

SMS log and call logs - this is something that Google developers leave to private developers.

Let’s list other advantages and disadvantages of Google Family Link:

Advantages:

• Standard Family settings exist, which speed up the process of setting options;
• Reliable blocking of adult content in Google Chrome and YouTube;
• In case of a real need to view a 16+ resource, there is an option to request permission from the parent;
• A whitelist of addresses that can be visited in Google Chrome can be created;
• Reliable system-level protection against the installation of new apps. If there’s a real need, anything can be installed with parent permission;
• Installation of apps from storage is also possible only with parent permission;
• The option to prohibit purchases or downloads in Google Play without parent permission.

Disadvantages:

• Long procedure for installing and linking accounts, which means the child cannot log in immediately;
• All apps require updates for proper operation with Google Family Link;
• On the child’s device, both the parent and child need to log in;
• There is an icon on the child’s phone screen;
• A lot of information is publicized for the child (what your parents see);
• Synchronization of all Google services is required to update settings;
• YouTube services are not available to children in many countries;
• Only the current location of the child is displayed;
• It does not show screenshots, photos, detailed web surfing, text input, or which movies the child watched on YouTube;
• Viewing history is only possible if the parent logs in under the child’s Gmail on another device (history clearing and private mode are unavailable to the child), but the child can disable synchronization;
• The search protection can be disabled by working without an account: in search, click on the icon and select work without an account, but the parent cannot disable the search program itself.
• Viewing results and setting limits can only be done from a mobile device.

Comparative table of the capabilities of Google Family Link and the parental control program KidLogger:

Monitoring capabilities, features.	Google Family Link	KidLogger
Duration of app usage	+	+
Ability to block apps	+	+
Web-surfing	-	+
YouTube History	-	+
Web search history	-	+
Web filter	+	-
Prohibition on installing new programs	+	-
Time limit for apps	+	+
Time limit for phone	+	+
No need to configure built-in power-saving programs	+	-
Protection against removal	+	+
Call recording	-	+
Recording SMS and social media messages	-	+
Recording photos taken by the camera	-	+
Remote server control	-	+
Screenshots and social media messages	-	+
Coordinates history	-	+
Getting the current offline coordinates	-	+
Getting the current online coordinates	+	+
Recording surrounding sounds	-	+
Keylogging (recording typed text)	-	+
Hidden monitoring	-	+
Centralized server configuration.	-	+

In total, we find 14 functions that KidLogger has and Family Link does not, and 3 functions that Family Link has and KidLogger does not.

Parents are faced with the choice of whether to install a sandbox from which the child cannot escape, but in which the child is also invisible, or a real monitoring tool that can limit the child's activity by time.