Microsoft Family Safety runs on multiple platforms besides Windows 10 but you’ll need a premium account to try out all its features.
Microsoft Family Safety is the company’s latest shot at parental control success, a simple Android and iOS app which uses a bunch of tricks and techniques to monitor and protect your kids. Family Safety restricts screen time on Windows and Xbox, and limits app and game usage on Windows, apps and Android. Multiple filtering layers block inappropriate web content in apps, games and Microsoft Edge (not Chrome, though, or any other browser.) Location support places your child’s current (Android and iOS) device position on a map. Unlike most parental control apps, this isn’t purely about keep an eye on them. Family Safety calls the feature ‘location sharing’, and parents are also free to share their location with the rest of the family. Sign up for a Microsoft account, if you don’t have one already, and all this is available for free. It’s a decent set of features for zero cost, especially with location sharing thrown in. ( Qustodio and Kaspersky Safe Kids dropped location features in the free versions of their apps, although you can get a basic map tool in Google Family Link.) Spend $10 a month on a Microsoft 365 Office Family account, though, and along with the regular benefits (Office 365 desktop applications,1TB OneDrive storage), you also get a couple of location-based extras. Geofencing support enables creating custom zones (home, work, grandma’s, you get the idea) and receiving alerts when family members arrive or leave. The really unusual touch is a Driver Safety feature which records your family member’s latest journeys on a map, and logs ‘how many times the driver uses their phone, their top speed, and even the number of times they brake hard.’ (Beware, this is only available in United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada.) If you might be interested in Office 365 Family, for Driver Safety or just to get the Office apps, there’s a 30-day free trial available. We grabbed Microsoft Family Safety for our Android device, and began a simple installation process. This didn’t involve much low-level Android work — it only asked for a single permission (Location), for instance — and the app was up and running in barely a minute. App setup starts by building a family group. Enter an email address for each family member, give them a role (Organizers can manage settings, Members mostly do as they’re told), tap the Invite button and Family Safety sends an invitation. Next, Microsoft prompts your family member to create a Microsoft account and install Family Safety on their device. This isn’t an app which automatically allows parents to do whatever they like, and the profiles for older children may not allow you to limit their app usage, for instance. (If this is a young child and the monitor settings are still greyed out, check the child’s birth date in their Microsoft profile.
