Get Automatically Notified if Sensitive Content is viewed on a Child’s iPhone
Set up sensitive content alerts to get automatically notified if a child views explicit content on an iPhone or iPad.
Apple Screen Time's Communication Safety preferences can be toggled on to warn a child when nude photos or videos are shared with them. When a child encounters a sensitive content warning, the content is initially hidden and the child can optionally notify a parent. The obvious problem is that children rarely choose to contact an adult and get help. Even worse, a child can still choose to disregard the warning and view the sensitive content anyway! In this guide, we'll show you exactly how to automatically get notified if your child views sensitive content on their iPhone or iPad.
Choosing an Effective Approach for Automatic Sensitive Content Alerts
Apple provides a setting called Communication Safety , which can be used to detect inappropriate content being shared with or by a child.
It’s available as a part of Screen Time or Apple Family Sharing. But here's the problem:
- Apple's sensitive content detection is only supported in a limited number of apps. The main intent is to protect a child from sending or receiving nudity over iMessage and Airdrop, but not necessarily adult images and videos in other apps.
- Depending on the configuration, a child may be able to ignore the warning and view the content anyway.
- If a sensitive content warning is triggered because a nude photo was shared with a child over iMessage, a parent is not automatically notified; the child must choose to reach out to a parent .
While Apple doesn't currently provide a way to customize Communication Safety so that a parent is always notified, screenshot-based monitoring apps like LivingRoom for Families fill in the gaps.
The LivingRoom app for iOS automatically notifies parents if any sensitive content is viewed on their child’s iPhone using similar sensitive content detection technology that Apple uses with their Communication Safety feature.
LivingRoom improves on sensitive content detection by proactively blocking nudity without the option for a child to ignore the warning and view the explicit content.
Use LivingRoom for Families to Get Notified if Suggestive or Sensitive Content is viewed on a Child’s iPhone
LivingRoom for Families uses an approach called screenshot monitoring, which allows parents to view activity from any app, including social media apps that are traditionally very difficult to monitor.
Because LivingRoom uses screenshot monitoring, parents get much more context about how the iPhone they are monitoring was being used, and immediately receive an alert if sexual content was viewed on that device.
A parent can click the link in the email notification to view the screenshot context.
Parents can also choose to be notified if potentially suggestive content was viewed, which catches more kinds of content that Communication Safety would typically miss.
Suggestive content could include images with swimsuits, lingerie, or other provocative content that might not be considered nudity, but you wouldn't be comfortable letting your child see.
Use Communication Safety as a Safety Net to Prevent Explicit Content from being sent to your Child’s iPhone
If you’re using Screen Time or Apple Family Sharing on your child’s iPhone, enable Communication Safety like this:
We recommend parents check out our dedicated guide for enabling parental controls on a child's iPhone for instructions on how to set up Apple Family.
What should parents expect if Communication Safety is enabled for their child?
On your child’s device, before a potentially explicit image is sent or viewed, an alert will appear like the one below:
If a Screen Time passcode is enabled, this passcode is required to view the image. Parents should expect to keep in open contact with their child and clearly explain what they should do if this notification appears.