Hi all: I'd like to introduce you to David George, Director of Trustworthy Computing for Windows Vista and one of the individuals responsible for the Family Safe Computing initiative. David in this article gives an overview of the new Parental Controls and also a little insight into the philosophy behind their design. I hope it gives you a good idea of the span of control now available in Windows Vista and helps in putting the new features to work for you. -- Nick
As both a Microsoft employee and a parent, I am impressed with the focus on safe computing for families that Microsoft has adopted across our product platforms and services. With the release of the consumer versions of Windows Vista, Microsoft will have parental controls tools, family settings, or content controls across all of our major platforms (Windows Vista, Xbox 360, Xbox On-Line, Windows Live/MSN, MSTV, & Zune).
In my job as a Director of Family Safe Computing, I am lucky to have the opportunity to interact and work with child safety experts, law enforcement agencies, governmental leaders, family safety software providers, parents, and many private concerns on a global basis. Most believe that the family safe computing tools we already have released will have a very positive effect on empowering parents to manage their home computing environment based on their own family values, and will have the net effect of providing a safer computing environment for children.
In my discussions with thousands of parents on the topic of family settings or parental controls in their home computing environment, a common theme arises in two areas: safer interactions and safer content for their children. Much as in the real world, parents want to generally understand and know about the friends or contacts with which their children are interacting and monitor content that their children might view, interact with in a video game, or get access to through communications programs such as IM or email. That said, a very low percentage of the parents I have spoken with like the feeling of acting as the family cop – they simply want to understand their children’s interactions online, help them navigate the opportunities that come with computing today and maintain their own personal family values in the process. While most parents – about 80% according to studies -- have historically stated they have wanted parental controls on their home computers, actual adoption and use of these tools has hovered around the 10% - 15% range. There are many reasons why this could be the case, but it’s the lack of ease-of-use that has been the most common theme for not using the tools, even when they are already installed on the computer.
This is one of the main reasons I am excited about the release of family settings and the inclusion of parental controls with the consumer launch of Windows Vista. Ease of use, choice and flexibility will be apparent as the parental controls will actually be resident as a part of the account set-up process. As a parent is setting up their children’s user accounts on the computer they are asked if they would like the account to be “parentally controlled.” If the parent says yes, they will be taken to a parental controls “hub” to apply the settings for the account.
Here’s a walk-through of how Parental Controls works in Windows Vista:
Once you decide to apply the controls to the account you have the option to apply many different controls to the account including:
- Web filtering and content controls
Parents have the ability to set web restriction levels by high, medium, none, or custom all of which carry an explanation of the sites blocked as you click on the level. You can also custom block by 1 of 10 categories. It is easy to use as well as customizable to the parents needs. Parents also have the ability to block file downloads to the computer which can cause security, performance, or licensing issues.
- Games controls (tied into prescriptive guidance from the Entertainment Software Ratings Boards, or other global ratings boards or by single category)
The parent can block by the recommended levels of the rating board or custom block categories from blood and violence to nudity based on their own family needs.
- Time of use controls that control when a managed user can access and use the computer
If parents want to set a block of time that their children can use the computer for gaming or homework, etc., they can schedule this hour by hour for each day of the week.
- Auditing & monitoring
Parents can view the activities that their children are using the computer for from web sites visited to web sites blocked to most utilized applications. Also important is amount of time spent on the computer if you haven’t applied the times controls so that you can manage the amount of time your children are spending on the computer.
Parents will also have control over the applications that the parentally controlled account will use, so an example would be, if a parent would like to block their child from having access to P2P programs or IM, they could block that particular account from access to these applications.
A point to mention with all these tools is that they are readily apparent to the children and young adults that might be using one of the parentally controlled accounts. If a child goes to a website that has been blocked, they will receive a message on the screen that tells them they have been blocked from the site. We like to say that “Overt is better than Covert” in the case of family settings so as to drive better and more frequent conversations between the parents and their children in these regards.
Another important point to mention is that Microsoft has created an open development environment that let’s partners develop on top of our own parental controls platform, creating an even more robust solution set overall for consumers. At the consumer launch of Window’s Vista we will have four partners that are have solutions designed specifically to be ready to interact with the Windows Vista Parental Controls. The partners will be:
We fully expect dozens of partners in this area over the next 12-18 months with some very innovative solutions developed to help empower parents.
As education and awareness in this area is of utmost importance, Microsoft is also working with organizations globally to educate parents on how to better manage their home computing environments, protect their children in their computing endeavors, and educate themselves on how to best establish a safe computing environment for their families. From NCMEC, I-SAFE, FCC, Child Exploitation Online Protection Agency, Chamber of Commerce, GetNetWise.com, StaySafe.org, ECPAT.org, Microsoft is working with experts globally to educate parents and provide tools to keep families safe.
This is the first time that family settings and parental controls have been available in a Microsoft operating system and I hope that parents are as excited about the availability of the tools from Microsoft as I am about working to develop and introduce them to the market.
David A. George - Director, Family Safe Computing - Microsoft