Parental control (light version)

Summary

I have proposed a parental control feature quite some time ago. This will probably require quite some efforts. Therefore I'd like to propose an amendment: Features that could serve as first steps towards a full-featured parental control and that are less complex to be implemented:

Step 1: Installation lock. As a parent, might deal with the phone usage time of my child. But what is absolutely indispensable: I need to be able to lock AppsStore, in order to prevent my child to instal him/herself apps from the store. At the same time the installation of apk-files should be blocked as well.

For blocking the installation of apps it would be sufficient to have a password preventing the usage of the AppsStore.

The app AppLock from the F-Droid repository could serve as a foundation for this feature.

Step 2: Allow installation of an app. In a second stage, I would allow my child to install a specific app - and I'd like to do that even if I am not nearby. This could work like this: I am selecting the app in AppsStore on my own /e/phone, I am sending a link via SMS or messenger to my child, this link will allow him/her to install this specific app once.

I am proposing this latter feature after observing the interaction within my own family. MY daughter needed a few times an app. It had to be quickly, but unfortunately at that very moment I was physically far away. Furthermore, this kind of remote installation support could be helpful to allow elder phone users to get specific apps installed.

Step 3: Full-featured parental control. If there is time at a later moment to implement a more full-featured parental control center this would be nice but could be simply postponed until resources will be available for that. The light features as described above in steps 1 and 2 would be really helpful first steps to allow junior users to interact with smartphones and to limit a bit their desire to play around with.