Parental Guidance Series: Guided Access

Photo by Ricardo Viana on Unsplash

As I sit here on my front porch, thinking of the hundreds of kernels of corn my son just spilled and strung across my lawn on his way to fill the squirrel feeder, I’m reminded anew that kids are messy and often do things you’d rather them not.

Trust me, I know you know that.

Either you are a parent and have experienced it first hand, every day of your life since your child was born, or you don’t have kids, quite possibly for that very reason. Yet despite knowing how messy they are, and the trouble that they can get into — often without trying, we all have at one point turned over our phones or tablets over to them to use.

Maybe we just want them to be quiet in the car, or settled in a doctor’s waiting room. Perhaps you’ve been stuck on level 367 of Candy Crush for going on three months and figure you might as well see if the 5 year old will have better luck.

Now, in full honesty, I don’t recommend you sharing your phone with your kid whatsoever. Our phones are extensions of our brains, and kids mess with our brains too much as it is. There are photos or memes they shouldn’t see, work emails that they don’t need to reply to, texts they shouldn’t read. Not only that, while you may be good with security on your device, kids rarely share those feelings. And all of this is setting aside just how sticky their fingers usually are *shudder*.

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

But sometimes, even those of us who know better, will still cave and hand our devices over to our kids. Turns out, there is a little known feature called Guided Access (on iPhones and iPads) and Screen Pinning (on Android devices) that will enable us to share our devices in a much safer manner.

What Guided Access/App Pinning does is allows us to lock our phones to a specific app. When enabled, whoever is using your device can not switch apps or get to the home screen without knowing a PIN. They can do whatever they want in that app, but nothing more. Its something I very much wish I had access to when my children were younger. Now, its something I do when I need to turn my phone over to someone at a register at a store, or a coworker that needs to read information. It’s very quick to enable, and just as quick to end.

Before it can be used, you have to enable the option on your device, as its not on by default.

Photo by Clayton Robbins on Unsplash

Enabling Guided Access / App Pinning

This will only need to be done once, not each time you wish to use the feature.

On iPhone/iPhone

1. Open Settings.
2. Scroll down (or search for) and select Accessibility.
3. Scroll down and select Guided Access.
4. Enable Guided Access.
5. Select Passcode Settings.
6. Select Set Guided Access Passcode.
7. Set a 6-digit Passcode (I recommend something different than your lockscreen passcode). After setting, you can also enable Touch ID/Face ID to unlock it.

Android

1. Open Settings.
2. Scroll down (or search for) and select Security.
3. Scroll down and select Advanced.
4. Select App pinning
5. Enable App pinning, and acknowledge note on screen.
6. Ensure Ask for PIN before unpinning is selected.

Turning on Guided Access / App Pinning

Once enabled, guided access/app pinning is available to use at any time via some quick actions on your device prior to handing it over. It’s slightly different on both iPhone and Android devices, but the good thing is that you probably only use one type of device, and thus only have to remember one set of instructions.

On iPhone/iPad

1. Open the app they will be using.
2. Triple-click the screen lock button (this is on the side of iPhones with Face ID, and on the top of iPhones with Touch ID).
3. Select Start.
4. To disable, simply triple-click the screen lock button.
5. Enter your PIN.
6. Select End.

On Android

1. Open the app they will be using.
2. Swipe up to the middle of your screen.
3. At the top of the screen, tap the icon of the app.
4. Select Pin.
5. To disable, swipe up to the middle of the screen and pause for a moment.
6. On the Lock Screen, either use the thumbprint reader, or swipe up and enter your PIN.

Guided Access/App Pinning may not seem like a have to have, but it’s one of those little things that can keep you and your information just a little safer and secure. Once you get in the habit of using it, it will become second nature, and your mind will be more at ease. Sure it won’t protect your phone from being dropped in the toilet by a toddler, but it will prevent your supervisor from received 300 emojis in a text.

Look for more upcoming articles in this Parental Guidance series. Heck, if I can figure it out, they might even appear in their own section of this site.

Stay safe out there.