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[Feature Proposal] Parental control / junior digital wellbeing

(Issue title)

[Feature Proposal] Parental control / junior digital wellbeing

Context

Children starting to use and own smartphones earlier and earlier. There is not a single answer on the question What's the right way of using a smartphone?, as it involves a broad knowledge - for instance content related or technical understanding. So, exposing juniors to IT gear always requires face-to-face-time together, explanations and guidance. But some technical support in this can be quite helpful as the adult discussion on digital wellbeing is showing.

The purpose of such kind of feature for kids should not be in anyway to spy on a kid, but to set certain limits to early age smartphone users. Therefore I am proposing a JUNIOR DIGITAL WELLBEING feature built-in /e/.

Furthermore, extending the target group of /e/ from (the often mentioned) “Mums and Dads” to youngsters, could ease the media visibility of the system: /e/ as a privacy enabling OS and/or a child OS.

Feature Overview

What this Junior Digital Wellbeing should offer:

  • Defining usage time for the device and specific apps.
  • Blacklisting / Whitelisting certain apps/app groups & locking APK installation.
  • Visualising usage behaviour/time per app/app group/device for 1/7/15 day(s).
  • Extending usage time (exceptions) by for instance 15min app/device.

What this Junior Digital Wellbeing should NOT offer:

  • Geographically locating or geofencing the junior.
  • Providing detailed communication logs to parents.
  • Webfiltering.

Proposed features 1

  • Introducing a parental (control) section in device settings (to be password locked). Right there, various parameters can be set (all directly at the youngsters phone).
  • Settings: Restrict (on/off) display of app in Bliss.
  • Settings: Restrict (on/off) installation of APKs (with blacklisting and whitlelisting capabilities, especially whitelisting Open Source apps).
  • Settings: Restrict (on/off) usage of Bluetooth, camera, GPS, microphone, mobile data, NFC and Wifi. Mobile data ideally allow to set a quota.
  • Settings: Time limit of usage of the device per day and/or per app/day. Junior user with get notifications 5 minutes before the limit is reached.
  • Settings: Set downtime of the device (over night) - eventually: only calls and SMS would be permitted for pre-defined contacts, like parents for emergency.
  • Feature (on/off): Permitting junior user to get 15mins extra per app/ phone (in case it’s needed). This extra time could be deducted from tomorrows time account. In the Parental Control tab this extra time would be notified.
  • Feature: Change the default extra-time (15min) to something else.
  • Feature: Simple unlock of the phone with the parental password (on/off/24h).
  • Display: Usage time left and history of the time per application over the last 7 days with details for each day (maybe in a Bliss widget).
  • Display: For transparency reasons, in the Parental Control section the junior user has to be able to see all the settings, but of course not be able to change them without the parent password.

All features proposed above could be set directly on the junior user's phone,

Proposed features 2 (some additional thoughts)

I was talking to some other parents using Parental Control services.

  • Most of them were on the iOS, so they used the integrated Screen Time feature. They confirmed that it is an easy to use and well working service.
  • But: They underlined the importance of remotely modify the settings from their own phone (this is not part of the above mentioned list of proposed features 1). Especially: Parents should be able to remotely oversee the juniors usage behaviour and to remotely grant extra time to the junior user from their own phone. And moreover: their kids would not be keen at all on handing over their phones to their parents to get some settings modified.

These features might not get along with the My data is MY data philosopy, that's why they are presented in a separate section. This probably requires some furhter thinking.

Notes:

  • Competitors: various. Most of them are tracker and ad stuffed. Otherwise, there is one little offer on a privacy respecting and easy to use parental control tools. Among the promising alternatives there are two worth mentioning: Apple introduced (easy to use) child safety features on OS level straight into iOS12. For Android there is a (not very user friendly but Open Source) app named TimeLimit.
  • Android Pie: JUNIOR DIGITAL WELLBEING features could be thought as part of the digital wellbeing features, as they were introduced with Android Pie.

References:

This feature proposition is based on a discussion (late May 2019) in the Community Forum https://community.e.foundation/t/child-safety-features-in-e-some-thoughts/3960

Thank you donut3, haggisns, VitTh, willisama, Manoj and in particular Anonyme for your valuable input.

Edited by Ralph Böhlke