Apple has pledged to fix a years-old bug in its parental control system that allows children to bypass restrictions and view adult content online, according to The Guardian.
This error disables the Screen Time parental control system. PHOTO Shutterstock (Archive)
The bug, which allows a child to bypass controls by simply typing a nonsensical phrase into Safari's search bar, was first reported to the company in 2021.
To date, this has not been fixed. After the issue was brought back to the fore in an article published this week in the Wall Street Journal, Apple said a fix would be available in the next iOS update.
Basically, this bug disables the company's Screen Time parental control system for Safari.
While little ones don't seem to have benefited much from the glitch, critics say it's evidence of the company's lack of interest in parents.
“As a parent who relies heavily on Screen Time to keep my kids safe and prevent them from staring at a screen all day, I agree that the whole system is very problematic, it seems like it was thought out after that and there seem to be gateways everywhere,” said Mark Jardine, an iOS developer. “And it's been like that for over a decade.”
When it launched in 2018, Screen Time was touted as having a dual function: helping parents keep tabs on their kids' device use and helping adults be more mindful of how they spend their own time.
Since its launch, in the years that have passed, it is the first category that has come to rely on this service the most. Parents can use this service to block features and apps with a passcode.
A year after the launch of Screen Time, Apple cracked down on third-party services that performed the same tasks. The company argued that it was a necessary security approach because apps that can monitor screen time by default have the kind of access that can be used for more nefarious purposes. But Apple has been criticized for competition reasons.
Five years on, critics say this lack of competition has led Apple to neglect parental controls.
