After finding risky software on an Android device marketed for kids, we wanted to put together some tips to help better secure your kid's Android device.
There's a handful of different tools, settings, and apps that can help better secure your kid's device, depending on their needs.
We've broken them down into four categories: Parental Monitoring, Security, Safety, and Privacy.
Google has a free app for parental controls called Family Link, which gives you tools to establish screen time limits, app installs, and more.
Family Link sometimes comes pre-installed with some devices marketed for children, but it is also available in the Google Play store for installation.
Having a discussion with your child about these controls can possibly provide something that technology can't provide: trust and understanding.
There are a few basic security steps you can take on both your own Google account and your child's device to improve their security.
You can also enable safety measures your child can use if they are traveling around with their device.
Safety Check allows a device user to automatically reach out to established emergency contacts if they feel like they are in an unsafe situation.
The safety check reason and duration is set by the device user.
Emergency SOS assists in triggering emergency actions like calling 911, sharing your location with your emergency contacts, and recording video.
There are some configurations you can also input to deter tracking of your child's activities online by ad networks and data brokers.
Delete the device's AD ID. Install an even more overall privacy preserving browser like Firefox, DuckDuckGo, or Brave.
While Chrome is the default on Android and has decent security measures, they do not allow web extensions on their mobile browser.
Review the privacy permissions on the device to ensure no apps are accessing important features like the camera, microphone, or location without your knowledge.
The added benefit is you can configure many devices to one Pi-hole set up.
DuckDuckGo's App Tracking protection is an alternative to using Pi-hole that doesn't require as much technical overhead. However, since it looks at all network traffic coming from the device, it will ask to be set up as a VPN profile upon being enabled.
Roid forces any app that looks at traffic in this manner to be set up like a VPN and only allows one VPN connection at a time.
It can be a source of stress to set up a new device for your child.
Taking some time to set up privacy and security settings can help you and your child discuss technology from a more informed perspective for the both of you.
This Cyber News was published on www.eff.org. Publication date: Mon, 04 Dec 2023 22:43:05 +0000