According to an analysis performed by The New York Times and Sensor Tower - an app-data company - Apple has reduced the number and strength of parental-control apps available from their App Store.
11 of the 17 most-downloaded, independent parental-control and 'screen time' apps, like OurPact, Freedom, and Kidslox, have either been pulled from the App Store altogether, or been weakened because of demands from Apple.
This is unacceptable, and this petition asks Apple Management to restore strong independent parental-control and 'screen time' apps with their original content-limiting capabilities.
The fact that Apple controls its App Store means that the tech giant can dictate to smaller, independent app companies what features may or may not be incorporated into their apps.
According to The New York Times report, Apple has systematically imposed more and more restrictions on what parental-control and 'screen time' apps can do to curb phone addiction, as well as access to certain apps and harmful, adult content.
'Screen time' and parental-control app makers claim that Apple's similar apps are not as aggressive at limiting phone use, nor, crucially, parents' ability to control their children's devices, or block certain content.
Apple seems to believe that limiting parents' ability to restrict their children's use of mobile devices and their access to content which the parents find objectionable, is actually a good thing.
According to The New York Times, Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said that Apple had “acted extremely responsibly in this matter, helping to protect our children from technologies that could be used to violate their privacy and security.”
Read that again...Apple wants to ensure that "children's privacy" is not "violated" by their parents! And, Apple thinks that this is "acting responsibly!"
But, of course, most parents, who are actually interested in their children's welfare, want to know exactly what their children are viewing.
And, as parents, they have a right to know and control what their children have access to, online.
In an analogous way, parents also have a right to know about and control what their children have access to, offline. Think about drugs, guns, pornography, etc.
Parents have an absolute right to know about what their children are looking at, and what they are doing.
Please SIGN and SHARE this important petition asking Apple Management to restore strong parental control apps with special content-limiting functions - so that parents, and not Apple, can decide what their children will/will not view.
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/27/technology/apple-screen-time-trackers.html
