How to Keep Your Children Safe Online in 2026

The digital world offers real learning opportunities for children and real risks alongside them. For Indian parents, understanding those risks is the first step to managing them.

The Threat Landscape

Cyberbullying: name-calling, exclusion, impersonation and group pile-ons, usually on the same platforms children use for school

Predatory contacts: stranger requests on gaming and social platforms

Inappropriate content: easy access to age-inappropriate material

Excessive screen time: impact on sleep, attention and physical health

Data privacy: children unknowingly sharing personal information

We have deliberately not put a percentage beside any of these. The figures that circulate in Indian cyber-safety marketing rarely name a survey, a year or a sample size, and a number you cannot check is worth less than the plain description above.

Steps for Parents

1. Open Communication

Talk to your children about online safety. Create an environment where they feel comfortable reporting an uncomfortable interaction instead of hiding it — a child who expects to lose the device will not tell you.

2. Set Screen Time Limits With What You Already Have

Android's Family Link and iOS Screen Time both enforce daily limits, per-app limits and downtime today, at no cost, from the phone already in your hand. Set them up this evening. Do not wait for us or anyone else to ship something first.

3. Monitor App Usage

Review which apps your children use and who they talk to there. Both platforms' built-in dashboards show per-app time; the conversation about what you saw matters more than the dashboard did.

4. Know the Numbers That Matter

If your child is harassed, threatened or approached online, report it at cybercrime.gov.in or call 1930. For an immediate emergency, 112. Childline is 1098. These work now, whatever app is installed.

5. Educate About Privacy

Teach children never to share personal information, location, school name, or photos with strangers online.

What We Are Building for Children's Safety

Coming at launch: a child profile a parent sets up — name, age, the rules you agree together, and an emergency contact. That much exists in the backend today.

⚠️ Screen-time enforcement, app-usage reporting and alerts about unknown contacts need Android capabilities the app does not use yet. They are planned; they are not built. We are saying so plainly because a parent who believes a child is being monitored, and is not, is worse off than a parent who knows they have to look.

Start with the controls already on the phone. We will tell you when ours are ready.