Google expands Family Link parental controls with screen time tools, approved contacts, and more

Google on Wednesday Declaration A series of updates for its parent control software Link to Google Family And the plan to test the new machine-learning techniques to estimate the age of users so that it can apply more appropriate experiences on the child device.

The company said before that it would use it soon Machine learning to determine the age of YouTube users For better recommendations, however, Google tells TechCrunch it will also test this feature at the Google Account level. This means it is not limited to YouTube but will apply to Google products.

Those experiments of the age -old assumption model will start in the United States some time this year and will expand to more countries over time. Other Social Media Services such as Facebook, InstagramAnd Tick Already use age estimates and verification technology.

Meanwhile, Google’s Family Link Parental Control software is also gaining some improvements. The app is designed to control various privacy and protection settings across various services including Google Search, Photo, Assistant, YouTube, Chrome and more and to allow parents or guardians to control various privacy and security settings.

Family links are now updated to include children’s screen management tools as well as children in addition to helping kids focus on school.

A new feature called School Time will start rolling out on Android phones and tablets next week, which allows parents to “restrict or adjust or adjust the child to” automatically or adjust the child within a certain time, as well as access to specific applications. “

Later, parents will be able to add contacts to their child’s device and then set the controls to restrict the child to be able to call or send only those authorized contacts. It can be effective when giving young children who can be able to call mothers or parents or grandparents, but not others.

Google says that this addition will start roll out in March.

Children with Android devices will also be able to pay in-stor using Google Wallet at the end of this spring. Google says that Android users, who are supervised under the consent, will be able to add a payment card to their child’s Google Wallet so that children can tap and pay. Parents will be able to approve new cards, remove cards, add gift cards and tickets to their child’s wallet and to see the child’s transaction history.

Teenagers will be able to access more AI-powered features by the end of this year, including one “Learn about“Generator AI-powered equipment that provides interactive learning experience and AI research assistant NotebookThe They already join the AI ​​features to adolescents, such as AI overview in Google Search, AI Chatbot Jemi and Circle Search.

Google and other technology giants began to introduce extra protection and privacy features for minors under the threat of strict regulations in the United States and abroad. In the case of Google, it starts to defaults to Under -5 users users its saforch filters, limited sensitive ads, age -gate material on YouTube and many more.