Parental Controls bypassed by IOS private browsing

[Profile closed]

Hi all

I’ve never had problems with parental controls until I switched to EE broadband from BT in February.

Ive always had parental controls set to filter out obvious adult content and made sure to apply them why I joined EE. Those controls work fine on normal browsing modes but as soon as you go onto private browsing on any Apple device the controls are immediately bypassed and you can access anything. 

I don’t understand how this is possible because surely anything going through the router should be filtered but for some reason private browsing overcomes it and it’s as though no controls are set. Really frustrating when I have a family household of young and teenage children who all use Apple devices. 

Surely the whole point of parental controls is to give peace of mind that kids won’t be exposed to anything they shouldn’t be but that’s not the case here and it’s pointless having them. 

Can anyone please advise on this obvious flaw in EEs parental control systems please and how to overcome it? 

Thanks in advance 

[Chris_B]

@Profile closed  Are the devices using a VPN on them ?   Are the devices setup by yourself for children or did you allow your children to set them up.    You might want to read THIS  and you definitely need to speak with Apple about this as it’s there devices that are getting around the EE filter somehow when is private browsing mode.  

[Profile closed]

Thanks Chris. No, not using VPNs and I set up them up normally.

We still have a BT router and I’ve just seen on their site they have a warning caption on their parental controls page which says controls won’t work on private browsing on IOS 15 and higher Apple devices. All seems bizarre seeing as it has to run through the router so who knows how Apple are managing it.

I’ve managed to set parental controls on the kids devices now via screen time function and they can’t access private browsing anymore so at least that’s resolved it.

Bit of a warning to parents though that you might think you have them set but in reality you haven’t if your on Apple. 

[chistery]

There's also Apple Private Relay. That would very easily bypass restrictions on the router.

You're better off having the restrictions on the device anyway, as @Chris_B has posted, the router is so easily bypassed by anyone slightly technical.