AT&T Secure Family is an app for your Android or iPhone that allows you to keep track of your children and family members’ locations, set up automatic alerts, and even receive their text messages—which can be a great way to stay connected to the kids when they’re at college.
Perhaps best of all, the service also has a feature called “panic alert” that will notify emergency contacts anytime your child or relative enters a dangerous situation—and send them the child’s location, too.
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You can put AT&T Secure Family to work in three ways: If you want to know where your family member is at any time of the day (or night), you can use the tracking feature to see his or her location at all times. (And it will automatically update every 15 minutes!) You can also have the app send you a text message if your loved one travels away from home or school in a certain time period (like after bedtime).
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Or if you’re worried about something more serious than your teenager staying out late, you can set up an “alert zone” around any area where you think he or she might have trouble—and get notified if they enter it.
With AT&T Secure Family, you can:
- Track your child on demand or on a regular schedule, for example every day after school.
- Be alerted when your child arrives at or leaves from any location.
- Instantly view the phone’s activity – including picture messages, emails and more – in real time.
- View the phone’s location on a map at any time of day.
- Use the geo-fencing feature to create virtual boundaries around any location (like school) and receive an alert when your child arrives or leaves these places.
- Review up to 90 days of call log history or 30 days of text message history.
- Someone from your family is late coming home? Alert the rest of your family with an on demand or scheduled check-in alert
- Family member driving too fast? Alert them with speed alert
- Family member out of driving range? Receive alerts when a family member leaves or enters a designated area
Protect your Children with AT&T Secure Family App
The AT&T Secure Family app is a great option for parents who want to protect their child without limiting their access to the internet. Parents can set up safe search on their child’s device, and the app will filter out inappropriate content from any searches. The app also keeps track of all the websites your child visits, so you can see what they were looking at and make sure it’s age-appropriate.
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The secure browsing feature allows you to set up different profiles for each of your children, which is great for families that have multiple kids using the same device.
The app will let you know when your child is on a website you’ve deemed unsafe, and if they try to visit a site you’ve blocked, they’ll be prompted to enter a code that only you know. This way, they won’t be able to easily get around the blocks by going through a proxy or by searching for it directly instead of through Google or another search engine.
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You can choose whether or not your child has access to specific websites based on their profile, so if your older kids don’t need Instagram or Snapchat, you can block it for them but not for your toddler who will likely have no clue how to get around your block anyway.
Locate Family and Friends
AT&T Secure Familyallows you to track your child’s location with his or her mobile phone. You can then receive notifications when the child arrives at or departs from designated places.
It allows you to set up a profile for each member of your family, which includes basic information like their name, birthday and phone number. You can then set up parameters to monitor the location of these people, either on demand or at regular intervals.
For example, you could have it ping their GPS every day after school, or you could ask it to continuously monitor the last known location. If there is an emergency—you’re expecting them home but they don’t arrive—you can immediately find out where they are by checking the app.
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While this app has many useful features that make it well worth the time to download and set up (the entire process takes less than five minutes), its most important feature is the ability to show you where your family members are. If you’re away from home and need help finding your children at a baseball game, for example, this app will show you exactly where they are on a map. It’s also useful for parents who want to know if their kids are arriving home from school at a reasonable hour.
AT&T Secure Family is compatible with iOS and Android mobile devices. It utilizes the phones’ GPS, Wi-Fi, cell towers, and other location signals to determine the child’s location. A recent update also includes the ability to have your child use their own device to let you know their whereabouts, which adds a layer of protection for children who may be uncomfortable sharing their location with you directly.
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Using the app is easy. After downloading it for free from either Apple’s App Store or Google Play, enter your login information (email and password) and tap “Create Account.” Next, select from one of several age groups: 10-12 years old, 13-15 years old, 16-18 years old (or Adult). This determines the level of protection for your child: for example, it’s recommended that you choose the 13-15 group if your teenager has a phone but feels uncomfortable giving you access to his or her location information; similarly, choose the Adult group if your child has an adult relative with whom they share a device.
Location Alerts – Receive alerts when your child enters or leaves a location, like school or practice.
Parents can set up monitored locations, like school or practice, as well as monitor their child‘s general location on a map. They receive alerts when their child enters or leaves the specified locations.
Parents have the ability to view their child’s phone activities and contacts, as well as control certain features of their child’s phone remotely, such as call forwarding and text messaging. They can also set up “lockdown” controls that prevent their child from using the phone for any purpose other than calling 911 in an emergency.
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The app provides both a map and a list view, with the former showing a real-time visualization of where your child is and the latter showing you all the places they’ve visited in a designated time period. You can set up alerts to receive an alert when your child enters or leaves any location you choose: for example, if you’re concerned about your child’s safety at school, you could have the app send you an email or text message if it detects that they arrived at school.
Tips & Tricks: If your child uses the same route every day to get to school, you might want to consider setting up an alert for school entrances and exits only. This will help make sure you don’t get distracted by false alerts during times when they aren’t actually going anywhere—they might just be out walking the dog or jogging around the block.
Location History
AT&T Secure Family has a feature called “Location History” that allows you to see where your child was over the previous seven days.
This feature is similar to the “Find my Friends” app, which Apple offers with its iOS devices. Location History is a great tool for parents who want to keep track of their children’s movements, and it’s an easy way to make sure they’re where they’re supposed to be.
The Location History feature shows you detailed information about your child’s location on a map, including what time the phone registered in a certain place, that place’s address and the address of places your child has previously visited.
Limit Screen Time
Block your child’s mobile data and Wi-Fi, on demand or on a schedule you choose.
With the AT&T Secure Family service, parents can take control of how their child spends time on their mobile devices. Parents can prevent overage charges by setting limits on how much time their child spends using apps or the internet. Parents can also block access to certain apps or web pages based on categories, specific web addresses and keywords. Additionally, parents can set up a schedule for when the device has internet access and at what times of day it has access to mobile data.
It’s an absolute necessity for parents who want to limit screen time, but it will also appeal to anyone who wants to be able to take control of their mobile data use as needed. The interface is intuitive and easy to use. The app comes with pre-set profiles and schedules, so even the most technologically challenged person should be able to figure out how to use it.
This app allows you to set up profiles for each member of your family. Once you create a profile for a particular user, you can customize the settings for that profile. Some of the features include:
- Locking and unlocking mobile data or Wi-Fi network with a single tap
- Setting time limits for specific apps – block your child’s access to certain apps at certain times of day (for example, no more Candy Crush at dinner time!)
- Preventing kids from purchasing in-app purchases on Google Play
- Restricting downloads
- Keeping track of monthly cellular data usage
Overall, this is a great tool for parents who want more control over their children.
Block inappropriate Apps and websites
AT&T Secure Family offers a variety of content filters that you can use to block inappropriate Apps and websites, or customize your own settings.
The app allows users to block certain apps and websites by age range (such as ages 3-5), and the website also offers a variety of tips and resources to help families stay safe online.
In addition to the content filters, Secure Family also provides users with the ability to see where family members are at any time on a map, so you can check up on them if they’re late getting home from school or practice. AT&T even has family safety tips and resources to help you with other issues like managing screen time or keeping your child safe while using social media.
The Verdict
If you’re looking for a way to have more peace of mind when it comes to your children and their phones, AT&T Secure Family may be the right fit.
They offer everything that you need in order to monitor your kids’ screen time and phone use while they’re away from home, and it works great on both smartphones and feature phones. Plus, their pricing model is competitive: $7.99/month for up to five lines.
So whether you’re concerned about your child spending too much time online or having the wrong people call their phone or text them, AT&T Secure Family can give you the control that you need.