I use an iPhone 8 and my 12 year-old daughter had an iPhone 6 just purchased.

I'm worried about Internet sites mainly and would like to monitor text messages of certain friends she has been in trouble with at school. I have spoken to her about this and it was one of the conditions she was allowed her own phone. Can my iPhone monitor her web sites and sms texts ? Can I block both from my phone? I have seen some apps but was told they could be circumvented.

  • 1
    I don't get the close votes - It's not illegal to monitor your children's online activity or text messages in either the EU or the US. Many companies make products to do just that and they're available and legal in most countries. – fsb Dec 31 '17 at 15:20

Parental controls are more so about restriction rather than monitoring. Although your intentions seem honest and reasonable, someone could maliciously use a feature like this to spy on friends or significant others.

Explore Apple's robust iOS Parental Controls instead.

Parental Controls


You could use a 3rd party restrictions service like Qustodio or curbi. These are profile based and allow you some monitoring.

  • I have been reading on other links that it can be done people receiving same text on same Apple id?? Monitoring probably wrong word it's really checking the odd time websites are the big one – John mason Dec 30 '17 at 20:24

In iOS you can only use to set up rules in parental controls but Apple do not allow any monitoring even if you have any 3rd party software unless you jailbreak

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