Securing Your Family's Digital Footprint with Parental Controls
The proliferation of online games and social media applications has increased children’s exposure to the internet. As they use these technologies, they inadvertently create a digital footprint, potentially exposing them to various risks and consequences.
You can secure your family’s digital footprint with the help of parental controls. These tools can allow you to monitor and control your children’s online activities, serving as a preventative measure.
This article provides an in-depth guide for using parental controls to secure your family’s digital footprint.
Understanding Digital Footprints
An individual’s digital footprint is the information or data they leave behind when using the internet. It is basically a record of a person’s digital activities.
This might include the web pages you view, the information you share, and any personal data you allow websites to collect.
Why Monitoring Your Family's Digital Footprint Is Important
You should monitor your family’s digital footprints for the following reasons:
Ensuring Physical Safety
Your child might be revealing sensitive information about themselves, such as their residence, school, or contact information if they are not careful with the personal data they give out online. This poses a threat to their physical safety and should be avoided at all costs.
Protecting Against Identity Theft
It is possible for hackers or scammers to use any online identity, including that of a child, in order to commit identity fraud.
Safeguarding Online Presence
Every single interaction your child has when using the internet adds to their online reputation. At some point in the future, their online presence might be subjected to scrutiny and investigation. It might even have an impact on important opportunities, such as getting into college or finding a job.
Fortunately, tools such as parental control software can allow you to monitor your family’s digital footprint effectively.
What are Parental Controls?
Parental controls are essential for ensuring children’s safety on the internet. They allow parents to keep tabs on children’s internet use, detect and block malicious websites, and set limits on how much time children can spend on certain sites.
Parental controls can be implemented on a variety of devices, including phones, laptops, computers, and more.
Furthermore, parents can find detailed instructions for setting up parental controls and privacy settings on their children’s devices, applications, and websites.
Wolfeye is one such program that allows parents to keep tabs on their children’s devices from any internet-connected device or mobile application.
Securing Your Family's Digital Footprint with Parental Controls
The best way to safeguard your children’s digital footprint is to take preventative measures that manage how they share their data online. This can be done by installing parental control software that can allow you to keep track of your children’s online activity. These tools can help you in the following ways:
Safeguarding Children from Inappropriate Content
All a child needs is a device with internet access to access content that is not suitable for their age group. Fortunately, you can restrict your child’s access to inappropriate content, shopping sites, gambling apps, and more with a parental control app.
In this way, your child can explore the internet without you having to worry about them encountering any inappropriate content or activities.
Restricting Inappropriate Apps for Children
There are some applications that are not appropriate for children. With an effective parental control app, you can dictate which applications your children can download on their devices. It also prevents applications from installing unless you give explicit permission.
Restricting Screen Time
Internet usage is a slippery slope and can quickly become addictive if not managed in time. As a matter of fact, many applications and services are purposefully developed to entice users to spend more time using them. This can potentially divert children’s focus away from important everyday tasks like going to school, playing outside, or even sleeping.
You can help your children maintain a healthy routine by limiting their screen time with parental control apps. You can also limit the usage of devices during certain hours, such as bedtimes when they are supposed to be asleep.
Protecting Your Children from Online Threats
Parental control can offer you more than just the ability to set restrictions and keep an eye on your children’s internet activities. It also includes keeping children safe from online dangers like malware and phishing websites.
Children simply don’t possess the mental capacity that parents do to recognize and avoid potentially harmful websites, links, and applications.
Choosing an Effective Parental Control Software
There are many products in the market that can help with any or all of the problems listed above. It is recommended to invest in a reputable brand that has a consistent track record of success in this sector as well as the broader cybersecurity market.
When searching for an effective parental control software, look for the following things:
- Application controls: These will let you set a maximum time limit, restrict access to certain apps, or block apps that are inappropriate for children.
- Reports on your child’s application and internet usage: These can shed light on children’s online activities and identify inappropriate content that could require blocking in the future.
- Safe browsing: This allows your child to navigate their way around the internet safely while blocking sites that aren’t appropriate for their age. It should also flag any applications that have recently been installed. With this feature, your children can request access to certain sites, and you can grant or deny access as needed.
- Location and GPS alerts: These will let you know where your child’s devices are, so you won’t have to worry about their safety in case they forget to call or text you. You can also set up physical “zones” and have alerts sent to your phone whenever your child enters or exits one.
Simple portal: This will let you set up, manage, and customize the product easily on a regular basis.
Conclusion
As concerns surrounding data privacy continue to grow, it is important to secure your family’s digital footprint. Use our guide above to safeguard your family’s data effectively through the implementation of parental control software.