What does safe search change, exactly?
The results page. Explicit images, videos and sites are left out of what the search engine shows.
Every major search engine keeps a filtered version of its results for people who ask for one. With it on, a search for a word with two meanings returns the innocent one; an image search leaves out explicit pictures; the video tab leaves out adult sites. The engines do the filtering, using their own classification of what is explicit, and they are reasonably good at it for the obvious cases. Safe search does nothing to a page your child reaches without searching, which is why this page sits beside web filtering rather than instead of it. One filters what the engine offers; the other decides which sites the phone will open at all.
Why does it need locking at all?
Because on every engine, switching it off is two taps that a nine-year-old can find.
On Google it is the settings cog on the results page, then a toggle. On Bing it is a menu, then a radio button. On YouTube, Restricted Mode is at the bottom of the account menu. None of these asks for a password, and all of them remember the choice for that browser. A parent who turns safe search on by hand has set something that lasts until the next time their child is bored. The lock is the feature: MobileTracking checks the setting each time a search runs from the phone, and if it has been switched off, turns it back on before the results load. Your child can still open the menu and see the toggle; it will not stay off.
Does the lock work on mobile data and at a friend's house?
Yes. It is applied on the phone, so the network makes no difference.
Many safe-search locks are set up in a home router, and they are good until the phone walks out of the door. This one is part of the child app, which sees the search through the Accessibility service and applies the engine's safe setting itself. 4G, the school's Wi-Fi, Grandma Ngozi's broadband and Tyler's house are all the same to it. There is no DNS to change on the phone and no network to configure. The only thing that switches it off is a parent turning it off in the panel, which the child's phone will show on its "What's shared" screen that afternoon.
Which search engines and apps are covered?
Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo in any recognised browser, and YouTube's Restricted Mode in the app and on the site.
Those four cover almost every search a child makes. Each has its own switch on the safe search screen, so you can lock Google and leave DuckDuckGo alone if you want to, though we cannot think of a reason to. The lock applies in Chrome, Samsung Internet, Firefox, Edge and the built-in browser inside most chat apps, which is the same set the web filter recognises. Searches made inside other apps, such as TikTok's search bar or a shop's search box, are not search engines and are not touched. The table further down lists exactly what locks and what does not, engine by engine.
What does my child see?
A line on their "What's shared" screen, and a toggle in the engine that turns itself back on.
The child app says, in a sentence, that safe search is locked on by the family and names the engines. Amara can open Google's settings and see the SafeSearch switch like anyone else; if she turns it off, it is back on before the next results page loads, and the app's own screen says why. There is no error, no fake "this setting is unavailable" and no attempt to hide the toggle. As with every feature, her phone also shows that a parent opened the panel today. The aim is that the lock is boring, not mysterious. A lock that a child understands is one they stop testing.
Is anything about what they searched for sent to me?
Only what appears in the page title of the results, which the web log already shows.
The safe search feature itself sends nothing about searches. It changes a setting and reports whether the setting is on. The web log, which belongs to the filter, lists page titles, and most engines put the search words in the title of the results page, so "chemistry revision gcse - Google Search" would appear there with its time. Nothing is read from the search box, nothing is read from the results, and if the engine does not put the words in the title, you will not see them. Turning the web log off removes even that.
Can my child get round it?
Not in two taps, which was the point. With a direct link or a different engine, yes, and we say so below.
The lock is designed to defeat the casual switch-off, and it does. It is not designed to stop a fifteen-year-old who types an address in directly, because no safe-search setting anywhere can; that is the web filter's job. An obscure search engine not on the list is not locked, though a visit to it shows in the web log with its title. A VPN app would show up as a new install on the app activity page the day it arrived. We think a parent should know these gaps before relying on the feature, and the limits section lays each one out.
At what age should it come off?
Later than most other settings; it costs a child almost nothing and it is easy to explain.
Safe search is the one control on this site we would keep on for the longest. It does not log anything on its own, it does not stop a teenager doing homework or watching what they want, and it rarely blocks anything a school-age child needs. Most families leave it on until the child leaves school, and tell them so. YouTube Restricted Mode is the exception. It hides comments and a fair number of ordinary videos, and by fourteen or fifteen it is often more irritating than useful. Switch that one off on purpose, say why, and keep the three engines locked.
