Apple's New Child Safety Features: A Step Forward Amidst Criticism

In June, at its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple spent an unusual chunk of time during its keynote talking up new Child Safety features coming to its devices later this fall.

The addition of these features came as a surprise to Sarah Gardner, who just so happened to be tied to a tree outside Apple Park in Cupertino, California, at the same time.

It was the fifth time Gardner—founder and CEO of Heat Initiative, a nonprofit that advocates for child safety in Big Tech—had shown up at Apple Park to protest and draw attention to what she says is the lack of child protection guardrails in Apple products.

This time, something different happened. Apple answered.

“Overall, it was a huge win that they spent 10 minutes of the keynote addressing child safety, because that never would have happened a few years ago,” Gardner tells WIRED. “Apple, as a company, tried to ignore for a long time that they were part of a child’s online experience at all. Echoes of ‘we’re just hardware’ come to mind when I think of Apple's approach to child safety.”

Gardner, who has spent 15 years in online trust and safety spaces, says she worked alongside companies for 10 years before starting the Heat Initiative, and Apple “was consistently absent” from child safety conversations. While Gardner doesn't think the features Apple announced in iOS 27 and its other hardware platforms are groundbreaking in improving a kid's safety experience using Apple products, they're a positive step.

The advocacy of Gardner and others, along with the lawsuits Apple is facing over child safety issues, have amplified the issue, she says. “It’s all pressuring them to be forced to admit that they need to address child safety as a whole.” Apple is currently facing a lawsuit from West Virginia, which alleges that the company's business practices safeguard child sexual abuse materials, also known as CSAM.

The CSAM issue goes back a few years when Apple announced a photo-scanning tool to detect such material hosted on its iCloud servers without intruding on user privacy. But after widespread criticism from privacy and security experts for the technology's surveillance capabilities, Apple killed it. At the time, Apple told Heat Initiative that it “concluded it was not practically possible to implement without ultimately imperiling the security and privacy of our users.”

Gardner still wants Apple to implement this tool, claiming it balances child safety and privacy. But part of her protest outside Apple Park this June also brought attention to “nudify” apps hosted on the App Store; the Tech Transparency Project found 47 such apps in January. These apps use AI to remove clothing from real photos, making subjects appear nude. WIRED reported in 2024 that single-sign-on systems from several Big Tech companies, including Apple, are enabling people to sign up easily for deepfake websites, and in response, Apple removed developer accounts connected to those websites.

Gardner also asked why Apple never removed Grok, which still hosted sexualized deepfakes of celebrities as recently as June, from its App Store.

“When someone points out that these apps are deepfaking teenagers or creating child sexual abuse materials, they sort of quietly remove them from the App Store without making any announcement about it, so their inconsistency in terms of the App Store is really pronounced,” Gardner says.

Apple says nudification apps are against its guidelines, and it has proactively rejected many and removed others, including those which people have flagged through the App Store’s reporting tools. The company did not address why Grok is still available on the platform.

As for whether Apple is still looking into deploying CSAM detection tech, Apple pointed to its Communication Safety feature, which blocks images and videos containing nudity, violent content, or gore in various apps. (It’s turned on automatically for users under 18.) The company will also make a new function available for reporting these types of content. Users in Australia, Brazil, the US, and the UK will get it first, with expanded availability coming to other regions over time.

“We have a long-standing commitment to building a safe and trusted platform for kids, and provide many industry-leading tools that help keep them safe while also safeguarding their privacy,” Apple says.

Anunay Kulshrestha, an applied cryptographer and information security consultant at Infosec Clinic, says Apple's CSAM implementation had no accountability guarantees. He doesn't think Apple implementing it today would be any better than if the company had charged ahead three years ago. “A government can pressure Apple into adding something to the set that isn't CSAM, and Apple is known to defer to governments,” Kulshrestha says.

What Apple Is Changing

So what can you expect later this year in iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27? Let's break down some of the new improvements and capabilities.

Updates to Child Accounts

The onboarding process for creating a child account has been revamped, with Apple saying it should take around six minutes to set up. It's required for children under 13 and available for kids up to 18. This process includes limiting adult websites, setting age-appropriate media, and implementing age-based restrictions in the App Store.

Parents can also choose what apps kids can access on the device—there's an option to start with a few essential apps, a curated set, or to manually choose apps. (You can add more apps over time.)

Ask to Browse

Ask to Browse is a new experience in Safari; if it's enabled, kids must ask parents for permission to visit a new website in the browser. It works similarly to the Ask to Buy function in the App Store (where kids must ask permission to purchase or install new apps). When they ask permission, a message is sent to the parent's device via Messages.

Approve New Contacts

By default, kids need to request permission before saving or communicating with a new contact on the Phone, FaceTime, or Messages app. Parents will receive a message asking for approval, which they can decline or approve right there.

Communication Safety Updates

Apple's existing Communication Safety feature automatically detects and blurs nudity in Messages, FaceTime, and AirDrop for users under 18. This is now expanded to include gore or graphic violent content, and Apple says it also works in Shared Photo Albums, Contact Posters, and the Contacts app.

Time Allowances and Custom Schedules

Apple says it's working with the American Academy of Pediatrics and its Family Media Plan as a reference point for parents and their children's digital wellbeing. That's why Time Allowances has suggestions on how much time kids should spend in specific app categories based on their age, like Entertainment, Games, or Social Media.

Parents can customize these allowances, and there are daily schedules let you allow groups of apps at certain times of the day or week. For example, parents can block gaming apps during school hours. And if you want your kid off their phone during dinner, parents can pause device access through their own device. In general, the Screen Time interface has been redesigned for an at-a-glance view that shows a kid's average device usage and most-used apps.

Other Small Improvements

Screen Time Passcode Notifications: You can set up a notification every time a Screen Time passcode is entered on the kid's device.

User Reporting Tools: Apple says a new reporting tool is available in Australia, Brazil, the US, and the UK (more regions to come), making it easier for users to report CSAM or other inappropriate material.

Child Safety Website: Apple has a dedicated website that runs through the new tools with helpful resources and answers to common questions.