Deciding what’s appropriate for children to see online

The online world gives us access to a huge amount of information and services, but the scale of information available also means that there is content that is inappropriate for children. What is or isn’t appropriate is up to individual parents and carers to decide, and could be based on things like age, ability, beliefs, and family values.

What are parental controls?

Parental controls allow you to block and filter upsetting or inappropriate content. They work across your Wi-Fi, phone network, individual apps, and devices.

Parental controls can help you to:

Plan what time of day your child can go online and how long for.

Create content filters to block apps that may have inappropriate content.

Manage the content different family members can see.

Setting up parental controls on:

Home broadband and Wi-Fi 

Home internet providers can offer parental controls for your family. You can:

•    Use a filter from your internet provider to control the content that you and your family see.  Some providers allow different settings for each user.

•    Set up any device connected to your home broadband. How you do this depends on your provider and you'll need to access your home router. You can ask your internet provider for help setting this up.  Remember that this only affects your child accessing the internet through the Wi-Fi – if they are using 4G or 5G etc to connect you need to check the settings on their mobile device too.


Setting up parental controls on BT:  https://youtu.be/IjJ1tDhjkBo

Using Web Safe with Virgin Media: Using Web Safe with Virgin Media - YouTube

Parental Controls on EE: How do I turn on parental controls on my device? | Help | EE

Sky Broadband Shield: Sky Broadband Shield | Sky Help | Sky.com 


If your broadband provider is not listed above, please see its respective section on Parental controls

For further information and advice please see Parental Controls & Privacy Settings Guides | Internet Matters