Trust and verify. Can parental control apps harm a child?

Roskatchestvo’s Center for Digital Expertise conducted a survey of the most popular mobile parental control apps for iOS and Android platforms 15 apps in total . These services allow you to limit children’s activity on mobile devices and protect young users from information that can harm their mental health and development. What were the best ones according to Roskatchestvo, and how to use them?

According to 2018 Mediascope data, 93% of children ages 5-11 are already Internet users, at ages 5-7 it’s 89% of children and 97% of children ages 8-11. The share of time spent in the Internet is also growing: at the age of 5-7 years it’s 39% of time, and by the age of 8-11 years this indicator increases to 55%.

Parental control apps can be very helpful for parents who worry about what their child is doing online. There is no need to be afraid of them. The use of such applications does not imply a total control over the actions of your child – on the contrary, it is a concern for the child’s safety, because it is sometimes difficult for a child to understand what is good and what is bad on the Internet. In addition, these applications are not very difficult to use.

“With the near-universal penetration of high-speed Internet and smartphones, parental control apps are becoming a necessity for parents who want to shield their children from negatively affecting, abusive or simply unacceptable information. In addition to filtering web content and setting smartphone usage limits, parental control solutions perform a “beacon” function: using GPS, parents can see where their child is. Such services really help parents who are concerned about the safety of their children online and offline. But, as in any other business, it’s important not to go too far,” said Ilya Loevsky, deputy head of Roskatchestvo.

In August 2020 Roskachevo together with the company OMI Online Market Intelligence conducted a sociological survey, during which parents of children aged from 7 to 15 were interviewed. According to 879 parents, the primary dangers and threats to children online are content related to violence and cruelty 90% , communication with strangers 89% , dangerous groups in social networks 89% , information related to drug use 86% and pornographic content 84% . Most parents would like to protect their children from this content, which is why they resort to parental control apps. About half of current parental control app users believe their children were neutral about installing such an app 53% , while 9% of children of surveyed parents had a negative attitude. The data shows that parental control applications are in demand to ensure the safety of children.

The experts from Roskatchestvo Digital Expertise Center tested the most popular mobile applications of parental control for iOS and Android platforms 15 applications in total and found out how functional, qualitative and safe they are. “Outside the competition” analyzed the capabilities of iOS built-in parental controls. Besides, lawyers of ANO PravoRobotov have studied the privacy policies of the services for compliance with the 152-FZ and highlighted both negative and positive aspects that users should pay attention to.

Apps with at least web filtering features and smartphone usage limits that are available to all users not specific operator or third-party service and are popular in the American segment of the App Store and Google Play were included in the study.

So, according to the results of testing of digital products in this category, 11 out of 15 applications studied passed the mark of 3.5 points, which is a good indicator. The four apps that scored best across all criteria scored above 4. All applications received a rating above 3. No apps not recommended for use.

According to the test results, the most functional applications are Kaspersky Safe Kids 4.04 , Safe Lagoon 3.97 and ESET 3.65 on Android and Kaspersky Safe Kids 3.9 out of 5 and Kidslox 2.95 on iOS.

The best results in blocking checks were shown by Kaspersky Safe Kids 4.91 , Norton Family 4.65 and Kroha 4.15 on Android, and Safe Family 4.70 , Kaspersky Safe Kids 4.41 and Norton Family 4.31 on iOS.

The most convenient on Android – Kidslox 4.36 , Kaspersky Safe Kids 4.11 and Google Family Link 4.07 , on iOS – Kidslox 4.47 and Kaspersky Safe Kids 4.11 .

The most secure in terms of information security on Android are Kaspersky Safe Kids and Norton Family the apps scored the same 4.77 , on iOS – Kaspersky Safe Kids 4.82 , Norton Family 4.62 and Safe Family 4.44 .

The Kaspersky, ESET and McAfee Safe Family apps for Android and Kaspersky, McAfee Safe Family and Norton for iOS were recognized as the best on all criteria.

The tests were conducted according to 131 criteria. During the study, experts used parental controls as ordinary users: they installed apps on parent’s and child’s devices, configured restrictions, and then ran a test, trying to run programs with restricted access, accessing sites blocked in the settings, bypassing parental control protection, and more. As a result, all key functions were tested, evaluating usability, information security, blocking performance and app reliability.

Each of the criteria was given a different “weight” i.e., an impact on the final score , depending on its importance, which allowed for the most objective evaluation. Users and expert community opinions were taken into account.

According to the survey, parents ranked Web Filter prohibiting access to sites in certain age categories or containing certain content as the highest priority for parental control features – 69% of respondents, and child location control – 67% of respondents. The lists also include a ban on in-app purchases without parental permission important for 60% of parents and social network neighborhood monitoring information about who is added as a friend or in which groups a child belongs – important for 55% of respondents .

In addition to the sociological study, experts analyzed 1154 reviews of parental control apps in the App Store and Google Play, and also conducted in-depth interviews with parents who are active users of such services. Most often parents complained about problems with locking specific apps and the entire device, the ability to bypass locks, problems with screen time, incorrect operation and difficulties in uninstalling programs. On the positive side, parents have noted the ability to track the time of use of various apps and the location of the child, set the schedule for games and block unwanted content.

Having analyzed the respondents’ answers and users’ feedback, the experts thought it was important to check the following features: web filtering, GPS-tracking, blocking installed applications, availability of statistics, blocking purchases made, screen time limit, configuring usage scenarios, limiting YouTube content and many more a total of 54 functional criteria .

The cost of a monthly subscription for the examined applications is not related to the number of features and varies greatly, ranging from 99 Dollars/month ESET to 510 Dollars/month Screen Time . The average score for the functionality of iOS apps was 2.66, while Android apps scored 3.42. This is due to the technical features of Apple’s platform, which imposes a number of restrictions on app developers, unlike Android.

In addition to analyzing the functionality, the experts assessed how well the app did in restricting search results, blocking other apps, and how well it prevented its removal by a child. For this purpose, a “black list” of 200 sites with various topics not intended for children was formed, such as pornography, violence and cruelty, weapons and pyrotechnics, alcohol and tobacco, bets. Only three services demonstrated good results above 4 points for blocking all categories of sites: Kaspersky Safe Kids final score 4.9 , Safe Family by McAfee 4.47 , and Norton Family 4.37 for iOS and Android. Kidslox on iOS and Android performed poorly, as did Screen Time and Safe Lagoon. iOS built-in parental controls have average scores, as they failed to block 114 sites out of 200.

Most apps tested, with the exception of Safe Lagoon and Screen Time, have been successful in blocking pornographic sites. The situation with blocking tobacco and alcohol sites is worse, and sites related to violence and weapons are successfully blocked by only a few applications only Kaspersky Safe Kids, Safe Family and Norton Family have blocked more than 50% of sites in this category .

Data transmission security for parental control apps is critical, as the app accesses a child’s personal data, including coordinates of their physical location, and leaks of such data can potentially put a child’s life in danger.

In terms of encryption of data transfer all applications showed themselves to be reliable and earned the highest score which is logical, considering that many participants in the study are products of antivirus companies . Screen Time, Safe Family and Norton Family on iOS and Screen Time on Android do not show a notification to a child that a program is monitoring him, which is not a good practice and can be used not only against children but also against adults for espionage. The risk of this is quite real, given that the functionality of some applications is identical to spyware or stalkerware, and in practice they are often used for illegal purposes, which is why Google in 2020 has tightened the rules for advertising applications.

Lawyers of “PravoRobotov”, an autonomous non-profit organization, checked the compliance of privacy policies of the parental control services under review with the requirements of Federal Law 152 “On Personal Data. The main point that was paid special attention to was the collection of personal data by applications and its subsequent transfer to third parties. While the American parental control solution from Kaspersky Lab transmits information only in cases prescribed by legislation for example, at the request of law enforcement authorities , some foreign applications such as the one from McAfee do not hesitate to claim that they collect personal data for marketing purposes.

In some cases the applications are not limited only to personal data but also collect data from all devices connected to the same network. Most apps don’t specify a time frame for storing user data and the people who will have access to it. The negative and positive aspects of privacy policies that lawyers recommend you pay attention to are listed on the Roskatchestvo portal.

The study was conducted in accordance with the test methodology based on the preliminary national standard for mobile app comparison tests PNST 277-2018.