Apple announced an expanded toolkit for parents with its children’s accounts at WWDC, including greater ability to customize the screen time allotted to children and the ability to block pornographic or violent images from messages before children see them. Raja Bose, Apple’s director of trust, security, and product marketing, laid out some of the ways Apple believes they can help children access devices. “On the other hand, there are many benefits for your child to have their own device,” said Bose. “You rest easy because you can communicate, know where they are, and give them great apps to help them learn and grow.” But then he acknowledged the dangers of unlimited access to the internet before children are ready.
The company emphasized several important principles in its introduction of new child safety features: that parents should be the ones to decide what their children can access, that Apple’s recommendations will be shaped by expert research that weighs the risks and benefits of technology for children, and that some dangerous things on the Internet cannot be controlled. “While Apple’s powerful controls help parents control which apps their kids can access, and when, developers play a key role in ensuring kids get age-appropriate experiences within apps,” said Ann Thai, Apple’s senior director of market platforms and technology, during the presentation.
“Developers who play an important role in ensuring that children have age-appropriate experiences within apps”
The last point sounded like a message not only to Apple’s customers, but to politicians and regulators arguing over who should be responsible for preventing children from certain parts of the Internet. As policy makers have grown increasingly enthusiastic about age detection, Meta and other app and website developers have been forced to roll out age verification systems in other countries, including the UK, Australia, and parts of the US. Next, they supported proposals that would put the burden on app stores to verify users’ ages instead, and send signals about that age to app developers.
Apple has complied with age-verification rules when necessary — it began requiring information such as a credit card or government ID to create a new Apple account in Texas earlier this month. And its WWDC presentation followed a long tradition of companies trying to show they can protect children without regulation, something Meta has done as well. But it strongly emphasized the need for developers to step in.
“We believe that all applications have the same responsibility”
“Many apps already offer parental controls to help protect kids from content they shouldn’t see,” Thai said. “We believe that all applications have the same responsibility.” Thai suggested the company’s APIs that developers can use to enable parental approval within apps and protect children from nudity exposure. (Even as Apple executives made these announcements inside Apple Park, protesters outside the visitor center were demanding the company remove apps that use AI to unfriend users, including X’s Grok.)
Apple executives emphasized that they are following the guidance of medical experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Family Media Plan, which encourages a flexible approach to media use, rather than strict limits on screen time. Apple similarly wants to avoid calling out how much screen time kids should have. During the event, Apple’s VP of health, Sumbul Ahmad Desai, said “every child is different, and parents are in the best position to decide what works for their family.” It positions its products as the best way for parents to enforce those decisions — but not a silver bullet for making the entire Internet safer.
