Windows 8 brings new parental controls

The upcoming operating system from Microsoft will feature a new set of tools that will enable parents to keep an eye on what their children are viewing on the internet. The Windows 8 Family Safety suite will forward weekly reports to parents about the websites that have been visited by their kids and allow them to block any specific sites and apps. It will also allow the parents to set the amount of time that their children access the internet, lock search engines into SafeSearch and track any purchases made from the Windows Store.
Parents will able to do this from an administrator account and in which the children will not have access to this information and other tools. Through the administrator account parents can setup individual accounts for each of their children enabling them to keep watching what each one is doing.

The usage reports are not tied to one device either as it will be collecting information on the websites they visited from any device that the child uses to log onto their Windows account with. Phil Sohn, Microsoft’s senior program manager for family safety said in a blog post, “Computers give children access to many positive experiences; however, parents face challenges in monitoring what their children see online, the people they meet, and the information they share.”

He added, “Parenting techniques like this are important, but they may be difficult to employ if your household has multiple PCs or if your kids use laptops and tablets. And glancing over a teenager’s shoulder can be awkward for both parents and kids.”

Sohn said the point of using separate Windows accounts for each member of the family is not to watch what they are doing online but “It is also a great way for each family member to maintain their own unique online identity while still sharing a single PC.”

Source: Box