This topic

Parental Controls not working

mrburger — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 10:08:35 GMT

Hi BT Community

My parental controls have not been working for the past 3+ months, ever since I requested an upgrade to Full Fibre.

Before upgrading, using the 'old' BT Smart Hub the Parental Controls worked fine.

Ever since requesting the upgrade, NONE of the parental controls have worked including none of the excluded sites.

My kids have potential access to every seedy and sordid corner of the Internet. Great.

I'm still waiting for full fibre to be installed, apparently I need a new telegraph pole in my garden!

Meantime I have got the new Smart Hub 2 up and running, in non-fibre mode, and still the parental controls DO NOT WORK.

I have had numerous chats and conversations with well-meaning but ultimately ineffective technical experts at BT, switching parental controls on and off, reseting the hub, checking the DNS server is pointing at BT, etc and nothing has changed. Full bore access to everything, good and bad.

The latest twist to this ongoing saga is this:

Parental Controls won’t work on iOS devices with iOS 15 or later when browsing on Safari and for some app traffic when iCloud Private Relay is enabled.

We have ios and macos devices, but Private WiFi/Relay is disabled and we have a windows device - the parental controls don't work on any device.

It has to be something at the BT back end, surely, unless someone has a bright idea or experience to the contrary?

I throw myself at the mercy and wisdom of the Community. @DarrenW ??

I'm all ears.

MrB

Re: Parental Controls not working

NeilO — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 11:57:04 GMT

Hi, @mrburger I'm so sorry your parental controls have stopped working. I've seen this happen before when a Fibre upgrade has been delayed and it is due to a mismatch with our system records. I'll send you a private message so you can get in touch and we'll be happy to help.

Thanks

Neil

Re: Parental Controls not working

Amazon786 — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 10:44:03 GMT

Hi Neil0

Please can you kindly assist me as well with Parent Controls.

I have tried all combinations:

Google Chrome: Adult material is blocked on both normal and Private browsing.

Apple Safari: Adult material gets blocked on normal browser. But Private Browsing nothing gets blocked.

Not sure what I need to do.

Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks

Re: Parental Controls not working

NeilO — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 12:02:02 GMT

@Amazon786 welcome to the community and thanks for posting. I hope this helps

Apple devices using the Private Wi-Fi Address or Private Relay features may experience unexpected behaviours with some of our Broadband WiFi controls such as Parental Controls.

Because Private Wi-fi Address and Private Relay hides your internet activity and tracking across networks, it may have an impact on your Parental controls, allowing access to websites you've blocked or blocking websites you've allowed.

Our Parental Controls work by identifying individual devices via their MAC address, meaning that we’re unable to identify these devices and apply these settings when Apple Private Wi-Fi is switched on. This may also mean that it's difficult to identify individual devices when setting WiFi controls.

It's generally unnecessary to use this feature when you are connected to a WiFi network that you trust, such as the one in your own home and is mainly designed to protect you when connected to public or other types of open networks.

What can I do to get it working?

To get parental controls working, you'll need to turn off Private Wi-fi or Private Relay for your home network on the device.

Please Note: The Private Wi-Fi Address feature applies to individual networks in your WiFi Network list so turning it off for your home WiFi network only won't switch it off for other WiFi networks you connect to.

To Turn Off Private Wi-fi

From the Lock Screen, swipe up to access the Home Screen

Tap Settings

Tap Wi-Fi
Tap the information button next your network

Move the switch to the off position, for Private Wi-Fi Address (iOS 14) or Private Relay (iOS 15)

How to identify your device and still use Private Wi-Fi

Open the Settings app, then tap Wi-Fi
Tap the information button next to a network
This will then display the network information including "Wi-Fi Address", advise customer this to manage their device as usual, changes will need to be made against this address

Thanks

Neil

Re: Parental Controls not working

Amazon786 — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 14:58:43 GMT

Thank you for getting back to me with these steps.

I understand that the Private WiFi Address needs to be disabled on the individual phone itself.

But if your child has the iphone this can't be controlled. The child can just enable the option back again.

How can we disable so that a child can not have the option to turn it back on again.

Regards

Re: Parental Controls not working

mattbeyer — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 12:11:55 GMT

On my iPhone I also had to uncheck "Limit IP Address Tracking"

but this can be re-checked by any teenager that has read the forum, so BT child safety seems pretty useless.

Think I might have to get a dedicated firewall device.