Why Would I Like to Monitor My Child’s Text Messages?

And Pumpic turned out to be one of the best. This text monitoring app for iPhone allows me to provide my kid with enough security to prevent him from getting into trouble. I can follow calls, Internet usage, his whereabouts and much more in addition to SMS monitoring I needed.

Pumpic is a unique parental control tracking application for iOS and Android mobile phones and tablets. It is for ethical and legal use only.

Verizon Smart Family FAQs - Set parental controls | Verizon

Important notice. Try it Free. Useful Monitoring Features by Pumpic Pumpic is not only a reliable cell phone SMS tracker, but also a multifunctional tool to protect your kids both online and during daily activities. Monitor text messages on Android and iOS. View calls and multimedia files. Follow your children online and on the go. Check out other amazing features of the Pumpic SMS tracker for remote cell phone monitoring. Control Browser IOS. All Features Start Monitoring. Thanks for developing a great app! I look forward to seeing all of the features you will come up with in the future.

The developer, Eturi Corp. The developer will be required to provide privacy details when they submit their next app update. With Family Sharing set up, up to six family members can use this app. App Store Preview. Screenshots iPhone iPad. Nov 16, Version 8. Ratings and Reviews. OurPact Premium. App Privacy See Details. Information Seller Eturi Corp.

How to monitor your kids phone, texts and websites - Bark, Safe Lagoon, and Circle Review

Size Category Lifestyle. Compatibility iPhone Requires iOS Price Free. Family Sharing With Family Sharing set up, up to six family members can use this app. More By This Developer. OurPact Jr. Motiv - Executive Dashboard. You May Also Like. Parental Control App - Kidslox. FamilyTime Parental Controls. Screen Time Parental Control. Circle Home Plus requires a hardware device and, eventually, a premium subscription to get its full capabilities.

That said, there are some exceptions. Some services, like Locategy, operate on a freemium model, albeit with some limitations that don't apply to the premium edition. Others, like Kaspersky Safe Kids and Norton Family, do not restrict the number of devices that you can monitor. Parental control software tends to be more powerful on Android than on iOS, since Apple locks down app permissions and device access. Most parental control apps for iPhones require you to install a mobile device management MDM profile for all of the features especially those related to app management and time restrictions to function correctly.

For monitoring iOS devices, consider using Apple's Screen Time tools, which rival the for-pay offerings of standalone competitors. Apple's built-in and free solution is account-based, meaning that it keeps track of data across all of a child's Apple devices. Apple already included a good range of app-blocking and web-filtering options within the Restrictions section of its main settings app. Microsoft Family Safety and Google Family Link also offer first-party parental management solutions, which we cover in more detail in our guide on how to manage kids' screen time.

We also have a feature on how to manage parental control settings on every game console. The hallmark feature of any parental control app is its ability to prevent kids from accessing inappropriate or dangerous websites. Many apps bundle a proprietary browser that makes it easier for the services to manage, track, and control browsing activity.

How can I view the calls and SMS text messages?

This makes more sense than trying to reverse engineer support for every conceivable mobile browser. As such, most of these apps instruct you to block every other browser or restrict your child from installing any other apps at all. Some parental control utilities don't force your child to use a proprietary browser. Rather, they leverage VPN technology, running internet connections through a local app to enable content filtering.

You'll see the VPN icon when such a utility is active. The presence of this icon doesn't mean the child's connection is secured by a full-scale virtual private network, nor that the device's IP address is masked.

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Most of these browsers operate similarly in that they block access to websites that fall under banned categories, including all the biggest offenders, such as file sharing, gambling, pornography, and violence. The best examples have no trouble picking up on HTTPS -encrypted traffic and blocking access to anonymizing proxies. Some apps, such as Net Nanny, let you create custom web-filtering categories, and the vast majority let you add specific rules for custom domains.

How can parents monitor the child's text messages on Android?

Others can lock Safe Search settings and block profanity. The quality of web history reporting also varies from service to service. One area in which most mobile parental control solutions excel is in their ability to prevent children from using certain apps. This can come in handy for parents looking to prevent their kids from using social media apps, messaging services that are difficult to monitor, or browsers that get around the defined web filters. Still, it can be difficult to keep track of every new app that your child installs. Better yet are those services, such as Boomerang, that automatically block new apps your child installs until you explicitly approve them.

Mobicip gives you the option to whitelist only the apps you want your child to be able to use. App blocking works differently on iOS. You can block access to system apps such as Safari, Camera, and Siri, if you wish.


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You can also disable the iTunes Store and App Store and ban in-app purchases. Some parental control apps can ever remove app icons completely from the home screen, so there's no chance your kid can access them. One thing you won't be able to do with most parental control apps is monitor calls or SMS, MMS, and encrypted messages.

You can block secure messaging apps , but Boomerang and Qustodio are the only options we tested that allow you to monitor SMS messages and call data.

This capability is only for Android devices and is not built-in to the app versions on the Google Play store; instead, you have to sideload a custom version of the app. Time restrictions are another major feature of parental control apps. Some services, like Norton Family Premier and FamilyTime, let you specify how many total hours or minutes a day your child can spend on any given device as well as a schedule for when they can use it.

Qustodio lets you set up schedules for specific apps and device usage, as well as specifying a total time allotment for your child that applies across every piece of hardware they use to access the internet. A mobile parental control app should at the very least be able to keep track of a child's current location and some historical location data, too. It's also important for them to offer some level of control over notifications and the frequency of location reporting, to avoid bombarding the parent with useless data.

Both Qustodio and Norton Family offer these features. Some services, including Locategy, Boomerang, and FamilyTime, go one step further, letting you construct geofences around a location. For the uninitiated, geofences are digital boundaries around a physical location that help parents keep track of when a child arrives at or leaves a given location.

Kaspersky Safe Kids even lets you add a dimension of time to a geofence, so you can easily make sure a child stays where they are supposed to be throughout the day.