When it comes to Microsoft products, Xbox and Windows both have extensive settings that help you to manage your kid’s activity, set up Xbox Privacy and Online Safety, manage his screen time, filter contents that are not suitable for them, make sure kids don’t end up purchasing products without your permission and also regulate his privacy to safeguard his online presence. In this guide, we are helping you how you can set up Xbox Privacy and Online Safety for Kids.
Setup Xbox Privacy and Online safety for Kids
The first thing you should know is that you can always add a Child account to Microsoft account on Xbox. You can add your kid as a family member and then fine-tune settings. Microsoft offers more than 15 comprehensive and customizable tools to manage their child’s account across four key categories: screen time management, purchase limits, content filters, and privacy.
How to add a Child Account in Xbox
You can add a child account in Xbox in two ways. First is from the account.microsoft.com. You will need to create a Microsoft account for your kid if he or she doesn’t have it. Once you link to their account to your Family Settings, you set it as a Kid account. The second method is from Xbox console itself. The process is similar to how it works on the web. If you have multiple Xbox consoles, you can share Xbox games too.
How to manage Privacy Settings for Xbox for Kids
Kids account in Xbox is not new, so if you already know about it, let’s talk about new Privacy Features that was rolled out for kids. Then we will talk about Screen time, Purchase limits, content filters.
Privacy:
Multiplayer games dominate on Xbox or rather any gaming console. This means people can see what you are playing if you are available online, you can do party chat with others, and so on. Since kids do not know much about privacy, you can choose it for their best experience, and security.
Microsoft has also enabled new cross-play settings, which provides parents a with more choice in managing cross-network scenarios for their children who play on Xbox. As a parent, you can turn on or off, to allow or block both cross-network play and cross-network communication, on the child’s account. This feature right now is being honored by Fortnite Game, and more games will follow up in future.
Again, you have two ways to do it – Through Xbox Settings or from the console.
Set Privacy from Console
- Go to Settings > Account > Family Settings > Manage family members > Select Kids account.
- Under Kids Account go to Privacy and Online Safety > Xbox Live Privacy > Select view details and customization
- Here you can change settings for
- Online Status and History
- Profile
- Friends & Club
- Communication and Multiplayer.
- Game content
- Sharing outside of Xbox Live.
- Buy and Download and Data collection.
You can also choose to configure privacy for Apps for your kid. If he or she uses apps, you can make sure data like account info, location, camera, microphone, speech, contacts, calendars, etc. are not monitored any app.
Set Privacy from Xbox.com Settings
Go to xbox.com/Settings, and sign-in with your parent account. Next, Select your kid’s account, and then you can configure the following things. You can choose to either completely block it or selectively enable it for Friends and Everyone.
Settings for your Kids:
- See other people’s Xbox Live profiles.
- Use video for communications.
- You can see and upload community creations.
- You can communicate outside of Xbox Live with voice & text.
Settings on how others can interact with your Kids
- See your Xbox profile
- Others can communicate with voice, text, or invites
- View your friend’s list
- See if you’re online
- Check on your game and app history
- Watch your game clips
- See your music history
- Know your live TV & on-demand video history
- Others can see your club memberships
- Others can see your activity feed
Settings on how Microsoft can access Kids Data:
- Collect Voice Search Data
- Collect Speech-to-Text Data
That said, there are a lot more options you can look into for your kids.
- Purchase limits: You can choose to approve purchase made by children before they are made. Get an alert when a purchase is made, set up an allowance to limit purchases children can make on their own.
- Content filters: Restrict the kind of apps your kids can use on Xbox. Restrict or allow games, apps, and websites based on the age of their children to ensure they are interacting with age-appropriate content. However, kids can also request access to content which parents can then approve or decline.
- Screen time management: Borrowed from Windows, Parents can set time limits and view activity reports to keep on top of their children’s activity. You can set up when they can use it, for how many minutes they can use it. Also, keep it flexible with school routines.
Xbox Family Features have improved a lot over time, and now with control on Multiplayer features makes it even better. However, the games will have roll out an update to support this as well. So keep an eye on this as well. Let us know if you were able to setup Xbox Privacy and Online safety for Kids easily.
