Child getting around time limits / Continued Finder problems

kekeyork

I have two issues with F-Secure SAFE. My children have Honor 8 Lite phones.

 

1. Child can trick SAFE family time limits.

 

On my child's phone, WhatsApp is not time limited because that is our family's main way of keeping in touch throughout the day. If my child opens WhatsApp and then sets it to half screen, she can then watch YouTube videos in the other half of the screen, even when her time limit has expired.

 

2. Finder will not locate my children's phones when they are in sleep mode (e.g. in their bag)

 

Finder will only locate their phones when they are actively using them. If the phone is in sleep mode (i.e. switched on, but inactive), SAFE will not locate the phone.

 

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

My impression of SAFE is very poor now. I have started to use Google to locate my children's phones and now one of my children knows how to work-around the SAFE time limits via the WhatsApp half-screen technique. It's a pity having to spend so much time in Forums and contacting customer support, only to have no solutions.

 

It's starting to feel like a waste of money paying for SAFE when I can't trust it.

 

Thanks again for any tips or fixes!

kekeyork

I've now seen more how my daughter gets around SAFE. She sets e.g. a YouTube video playing, with half screen YouTube, half screen WhatsApp. As soon as the YouTube video starts, she touches the WhatsApp half of the screen and her allocated time stops counting down (as WhatsApp is not time limited). Doing this, she can therefore watch lots of YouTube videos, far over her allocated time.

Simon

I don't know anything about SAFE's parental controls but my brother had a similar issue with his daughter.  Whatever measures he put on her phone, she somehow found a way to circumvent it.  In the end, he decided that if she wasn't going to use her phone within the boundaries he set, then the only sure solution was to take the damned thing off her when he didn't want her to use it.  Sure, it caused tantrums, but she soon learned that it was better to use the device within the permitted constraints, than not have it at all.  

kekeyork

Ha ha, yes, taking the phone is one option 😀 However, it's not always so simple as kids are out and about and have their phone to stay in touch.

Simon

Yeah, but presumably the times you don't want to her to use it are when she's at home, supposedly doing her homework, or going to bed!

nanonyme

Hey,

This is a bit of an out of the box solution but they also sell quite cheap cell phones (not smart phones) meant for people with poor eyesight that don't want anything complicated that have insane battery duration. You could always keep the smart phone and give one of those to your kid if you only need to be able to contact them when they're out.

kekeyork

We normally let the kids have so much time per day. SAFE has been great for that - they get their time and they choose when they use it. With SAFE, the phone is set to lock at bedtime anyway. It's been good until our clever daughter learnt this workaround. Just trying to make sure they don't spend their whole life watching videos  

kekeyork

The thing is we keep in touch via WhatsApp which requires a smartphone. Where we live, it doesn't make sense to pay for phone calls and texts when WhatsApp is covered in the Internet. Also, they are moving travel tickets onto smartphone and the kids needs these for school. Oh, sometime it would be nice to have simpler things

Simon

I can perfectly understand why you would want to keep in touch when your daughter is out of the house.  It seems that the limits need to be imposed when she's indoors, and you want her to do other, more constructive activities, rather than just spending the whole time on YouTube.

 

I believe there are some routers, such as ASUS, which allow limits to be set per device, via the device IP address.  This means you could effectively cut the internet off on a particular device at a particular time by setting up schedules within the router settings.  Obviously I don't know what your internet setup is at home, but perhaps that might be worth investigating?

kekeyork

True, good ideas with the router. However, I recently renewed my F-Secure SAFE subscription, so I want it to work as it cost nearly EUR 100 for the year. It worked fine during earlier subscriptions. I've now opened two cases with F-Secure technical support for both this Internet workaround and also the Finder. I'm hoping they will solve this or I will ask for compensation/a refund. I'll try and update this thread when they solve the issues.