The facts about parental control apps

The facts about parental control apps<br/>Apple has always believed that parents should have tools to manage their children’s device usage. It’s the reason we created, and continue to develop,&nbsp;Screen Time. Other apps&nbsp;in the App Store,&nbsp;including&nbsp;Balance Screen Time by Moment Health and Verizon Smart Family,&nbsp;give parents the power to balance the benefits of technology with other activities that help young minds learn and grow. <br/>We recently removed several parental control apps from the App Store, and we did it for a simple&nbsp;reason: they put users’ privacy and security at risk. It’s important to understand why and how this happened. <br/>Over the last year, we became aware that several of these parental control apps were using a highly invasive technology called Mobile Device Management, or MDM. MDM gives a third party&nbsp;control and access&nbsp;over&nbsp;a device and its most sensitive information including user location, app use, email accounts, camera permissions, and browsing history.&nbsp;We started exploring this use of MDM by non-enterprise developers back in early 2017 and updated our guidelines based on that work in mid-2017. <br/>MDM does have legitimate uses. Businesses will sometimes install MDM on enterprise devices to keep better control over proprietary data and hardware. But it is incredibly risky—and a clear violation of App Store policies—for a private, consumer-focused app business to install MDM control over a customer’s device. Beyond the control that the app itself can exert over the user's device, research has shown that MDM profiles could be used by hackers to gain access for malicious purposes. <br/>Parents shouldn’t have to trade their fears of their children’s device usage for&nbsp;risks to privacy and security, and the App Store should not be&nbsp;a platform to force this choice. No one, except you, should have unrestricted access to manage your child’s device. <br/>When we found out about these&nbsp;guideline violations, we communicated these violations to the app developers, giving them 30 days to submit an updated app to avoid availability interruption in the App Store. Several developers&nbsp;released updates to bring their apps in line with these&nbsp;policies. Those that didn’t were removed from the App Store. <br/>We created the App Store to provide a secure, vibrant marketplace where developers and entrepreneurs can bring their ideas to users worldwide, and users can have faith that the apps they discover meet Apple’s&nbsp;standards of security and responsibility. <br/>Apple has always supported third-party apps on the App Store that help parents manage their kids’ devices. Contrary to what The New York Times reported over the weekend, this isn’t a matter of competition. It’s a matter of security. <br/>In this app category, and in every category, we are committed to providing a competitive, innovative app ecosystem. There are many tremendously successful apps that offer functions and services similar to Apple’s in categories like messaging, maps, email, music, web browsers, photos, note-taking apps, contact managers and payment systems, just to name a few. We are committed to offering a place for these apps to thrive as they improve the user experience for everyone. <br/>Press Contacts<br/>Tom Neumayr,Apple, tneumayr@apple.com ,(408) 974-1972 <br/>Tammy Levine,Apple,tammy_levine@apple.com,(408) 862-8600<br/>Apple Media Helpline,media.help@apple.com,(408) 974-2042<br/>