Child-monitoring apps might need a reboot

The market for child-monitoring apps, valued at over $1.5 billion, is booming as parents grapple with online dangers from cyberbullying to sextortion. These tools have had real successes in preventing tragedies, but new research reveals they can also cause significant harm, breaking trust and creating anxiety. This has led child-safety researchers to advocate for a fundamental shift, pushing for platform guardrails and building children’s resilience instead of relying on surveillance.

Key takeaways

• The parental control software market was valued at an estimated $1.57 billion in 2025.
• Monitoring apps have prevented serious harms like suicide but can also cause anxiety and break trust through false alarms.
• Digital harms are a top fear for parents, driven by online bullying, sextortion, and dangerous chatbots.
• Researchers advocate for a ‘duty of care’ approach, forcing tech platforms to build in safety instead of relying on family-level apps.
• An alternative ‘resilience’ model focuses on empowering kids to handle risk rather than aggressively monitoring them.

The Promise and Peril of Digital Surveillance

The market for parental control software, which includes dozens of apps, was valued at an estimated $1.57 billion in 2025. A growing segment uses content-monitoring software, such as Bark Technologies, which scans a child’s texts, photos, emails, and chats. It alerts parents when an algorithm flags something dangerous. Bark says it scanned 11 billion messages to or from 7.5 million US children in 2025.

Reported Successes and Extreme Features

These apps have had genuine successes, including preventing suicide attempts, intercepting predators, and averting school shootings. However, some competitors include more intense surveillance features. For example, the app FlashGet Kids offers capabilities like screen mirroring and camera access.

Significant Harms Revealed

Research involving over 600,000 reviews of leading apps reveals the significant harms these tools can cause. Young people described false alarms that led to punishment, secrets revealed before they were ready, breakdowns of trust, and anxiety that persisted into adulthood.

The Parental Fear Driving Adoption

Digital harms have become the defining fear of American parenthood. A 2025 national poll ranked social media, screen time, and internet safety as parents’ top three worries. These concerns are fueled by escalating online dangers. Nearly half of American teenagers report having been bullied or harassed online. Threats extend to online drug dealers selling counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl. There were also over 23,000 reports of financial sextortion in just the first half of 2025.

New threats, like chatbots allegedly coaching children toward suicide, prompt parents to seek stronger defenses beyond conversation and basic phone tools like Apple’s Screen Time or Google’s Family Link. Business is booming for content-monitoring apps that scan a child’s communications for risks. The next wave of growth is being marketed around AI. Companies position these apps as foils to emerging chatbot companions and other online risks.

The Case for a ‘Duty of Care’ Approach

Child-safety researchers advocate for making the platforms themselves safer. They push to force social media companies to build guardrails instead of leaving families to find their own solutions. This regulatory approach, which assigns a ‘duty of care’ to tech companies, is advancing in the UK, Australia, and several U.S. states. The goal is to shift the burden of safety from individual families using surveillance apps to the companies designing the platforms where risks occur.

The push for this systemic change comes as parents face escalating online dangers, from cyberbullying and financial sextortion to chatbots allegedly coaching children toward suicide. While many parents use monitoring apps or built-in phone tools as a first defense, researchers argue these individual solutions are insufficient. They can themselves harm trust and mental health.

As Pam Wisniewski, a principal research scientist, explains, the alternative is to redefine safety from the mere absence of risk to the ability to handle it. This idea drives the “duty of care” legislative efforts gaining traction internationally. The approach seeks to compel technology companies to design inherently safer environments for young users. It moves the responsibility away from families who must monitor and restrict activity after the fact.

Building Resilience as an Alternative to Surveillance

Researchers like Pam Wisniewski propose spending less effort on watching kids and more on helping them recognize risk, cope with it, and turn to a trusted adult when needed. This is termed the ‘resilience’ approach. It defines safety not as the absence of risk, which leads to keeping kids off platforms entirely, but as the ability to protect oneself and engage without activating a threat.

Wisniewski and others are developing tools that train children in resilience and build trust with parents, rather than aggressively monitoring them. She likens the shift to the difference between abstinence lectures and comprehensive sex education. The goal is to move beyond the current model of content-monitoring apps. These can cause harm through false alarms, broken trust, and lasting anxiety, despite their genuine successes in preventing some tragedies.

A Different Path to Safety

Instead of surveillance, the resilience approach focuses on empowering young people to handle online spaces. Researchers argue that forcing social media companies to build in guardrails—a “duty of care” approach—is one path. Alongside that, directly equipping children with the skills to identify and handle dangers represents a fundamental rethinking of digital safety for families.