Android parental controls · Built in the UK

Smartphone Free Childhood for as long as you can. ChildSafe for when you can’t.

The day the phone arrives — at 10, 11, 12 — most parents are on their own. ChildSafe puts your rules on the phone itself: the apps you’ve approved, the hours you’ve chosen, protection that can’t be switched off. And it’s built to do less as they grow.

Monitoring off by default Photos never leave the phone No ads. Nothing sold. Ever.

For Android phones — parent and child — running Android 8.0 or newer.

Getting started

On their phone in about ten minutes

Step 1

Install the parent app

Add your child and pick an age mode — Young Child, Pre-teen or Teen. A short wizard sets the first rules.

Step 2

Scan a QR code

Point their phone at the code and watch it set itself up. The protection is built into the phone, not an app they can delete.

Step 3

Change anything, any time

Every rule lives in your pocket. Or just tell the built-in assistant — “no TikTok after seven on school nights” — and confirm.

What it does

Whatever’s keeping you up at night, there’s a switch for it

Every card links to the full How It Works page — plain English first, detail if you want it.

“What are they seeing?”

Adult content blocked in every app and browser — not just Chrome. SafeSearch and YouTube restricted mode enforced, 25+ categories you control, and the phone itself checks new photos for nudity without ever uploading them.

Content filtering

“How long have they been on it?”

Limits the phone enforces itself. Bedtime that really is bedtime, school hours with only the apps you’ve allowed, and hourly “take a break” budgets for the scrolling apps. Calls and texts to you always work.

Screen time

“What have they installed?”

Nothing you haven’t approved. The Play Store is closed until you open it; they request an app, you tap yes or no from wherever you are.

Apps & approvals

“Who’s talking to them?”

If you choose, ChildSafe watches calls, texts and app messages for warning signs — bullying, grooming, self-harm — and alerts you with context. Every alert is sanity-checked by AI first, so you’re not woken for song lyrics.

Monitoring & alerts

“Where are they?”

A quiet look at the map, an alert when they reach school or home, battery level so you know “phone dead” from “ignoring you” — and a way to ring, lock or wipe a lost phone.

Location & lost phones

“Won’t they just get around it?”

It’s built into Android itself, not bolted on top. Factory resets, clock changes, safe mode, sideloading — the YouTube tutorials don’t work here, and every attempt is logged for you.

Tamper protection
The law is catching up

Social media will be off-limits to under-16s from spring 2027. Your family doesn’t have to wait.

The new ban covers TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook and X — but not messaging apps, not screen time, and not until 2027. Platform age checks can be dodged with a wrong birthday or a VPN. ChildSafe blocks the same platforms on the phone itself, today — and covers what the law never will.

See how ChildSafe covers the gap
Three modes

Different at five, different at fifteen

Young child

A phone for calling Mum

A small handful of apps, no Play Store, most of the launcher hidden. For calling home and photographing the dog — not the open internet.

Pre-teen

Freedom with rails

Apps you’ve approved, time limits that match your family, adult content blocked everywhere. Enough freedom for them, enough rails for you.

Teen

Practice for sixteen

Most of the internet, rails still up. The blocks ease as they show you they’re ready — so independence arrives gradually, not all on one birthday.

We don’t hand over the car keys without years of crossing the road first. This is the same idea, applied to the phone.

Safety & privacy

A few things you should know about us

Your child knows it’s there.

ChildSafe sits visibly on the phone. We’re not pretending it isn’t.

Monitoring is off until you switch it on.

Every feature that reads messages or checks notifications is a separate switch. You decide which to use, and when.

Photos never leave the phone.

Image checks happen on the device itself. And the texts we do hold for you are deleted from our systems after seven days, automatically.

No ads. No data sales. No exceptions.

Your family is the customer — never the product. Delete your account and everything goes with it, immediately.

Optional extra

A safe first taste of AI

The AI Learning Buddy is a tutor that helps children think — it guides, questions and encourages, and it won’t write their homework. Every message is moderated in both directions, anything concerning is flagged to you, and the whole thing only exists if you switch it on.

How the Learning Buddy works →

Testing programme

We’re building this with UK families right now

Numbers are kept small, we work with parents directly, and changes ship weekly based on what families tell us. If you’ve decided your child isn’t ready for the open internet, come and hold that line with us.

Join the testing programme Free during testing · Android 8.0+ · Set up in about ten minutes