You can set up BT parental controls on your BT Mobile account on your phone or on the BT website. BT offers parental controls for its Mobile, TV, and Broadband services. However, these controls are less comprehensive than those on the dedicated parental control apps for families.

Having parental control over your child’s device is super important because of the nasty stuff shared online, not counting the inappropriate content being uploaded every day. In 2022, the Internet Watch Foundation saw 255,588 reports of child sexual abuse imagery, with a 60% increase of 7-10-year-old reports.
With these stats in mind, you cannot stand by and let your child roam freely on the internet. BT parental controls can help you protect your child from inappropriate exposure. With BT parental controls, you can:
- protect all devices that connect to your home BTT broadband;
- set up different filter levels like strict, moderate, and light;
- choose filter levels when accessing the internet in BT Wi-Fi hotspots;
- block and allow certain sites;
- set up screen time for activities like homework time and when filters are on or off.
This guide will take you step by step on how to set up BT parental controls for a safer digital environment for your family.
BT Mobile Parental Controls
BT Mobile parental controls protect children under 18 from accessing inappropriate content when they access the internet on mobile browsers. Thus, your child’s BT mobile will have already been turned to the ‘light’ protection setting when they turn on their phone.
The light setting blocks all content suitable for adults, like alcohol themes, drugs, hacking, pornography, and extreme violence. Still, you can set up controls to block content for 12+ year-olds, which is the strict setting.
To set up BT Mobile Parental Controls
- Log in to your BT account using your BT ID.
- Scroll down, click My Package and then click Mobile.
- Find Parental controls. You will see a section called [Filter Mobile Content.]
- Next to it, you will see a settings box with the ‘Light’ option and a scroll arrow next to it.
- Click the scroll arrow to choose the parental control option you want for BT Mobile.
Images source: internetmatters.org
How to Turn on BT Broadband Parental Controls
You can activate parental controls for safe browsing across all devices with the BT home hub.
Note that you cannot turn on parental controls for one device. You can apply the filters to all devices connected to your home hub.
Your filter level will also apply when your child connects to any UK Wi-Fi hotspot using their BT ID.
To set up BT Wi-Fi parental controls for the first time on a BT hub:
- Go to bt.com and log in with your BT ID and password. If you have not signed up, you need your BT account number and email address to set up your BT account.
- Scroll down and click on [Manage Your Extras] button.
- Go to the BT parental controls section and click the [Manage BT parental controls] link.
- The ‘Light’ filter will apply automatically. You will see a confirmation screen, and the BT internet parental controls will block inappropriate content in 2 hours.
- To customise the settings, open the [Change filter levels] setting and select light, moderate, or strict filter levels.
- Open the [Add Allowed and Blocked Sites] tab to block different categories of websites and also add the websites you want to allow.
- To set filter times, click on the Set Filter Times tab. Choose the days of the week and the times for applying filters. In addition, use the Homework Time section to choose the time and days of the week when your kids are doing their homework.
Images source: YouTube
Set BT Parental Controls for TV
BT TV is now EE TV since BT merged with EE in 2019. You get the same services, including parental controls for your EE TV.
To set up BT Parental Controls for EE TV
- Press Home on your remote control.
- Choose settings and scroll down to parental controls; it will display as [Restrict Rated Programmes].
- Enter your PIN to open the Control Channels Page.
- Choose the rating you want and press OK.
- Hide categories and adult content. Press Done and then OK.
Users’ Review of BT Parental Controls
BT users have expressed concerns about BT parental controls not working on Apple Safari when the particular iOS device is accessing the internet using a private tab.
BT acknowledged the problem and said the parental controls cannot identify a Mac address when Apple’s private Wi-Fi is turned on.
Some parents have also complained that time filters tend to fail, causing kids to stay up until late on school nights. Again, BT acknowledged the issue by saying its team was working on it.
Can A Kid Bypass BT Parental Settings?
A child cannot bypass BT parental settings unless they have the BT ID and password to the parent’s account.
Besides, you will receive an email every time there are parental control changes, so you will always know whether you are the one who made the change or your child made the changes.
Still, based on our research, we found that techies will use VPNs or change their devices’ IP addresses to bypass BT parental controls.
What to Do if BT Parental Controls Are Not Working?
BT parental controls may fail to block certain content types, or they can block a site incorrectly. When this happens, you can log a complaint with BT to enable a site you feel has been blocked inappropriately.
However, you may need to block a ‘Search Engine’ category if searches return inappropriate content. Nevertheless, you can avoid the hassle of changing parental controls back and forth by installing a parental control family tracker on your child’s device. It allows you to block specific sites without fail.
BT Parental Controls VS Family Tracker
To understand the comprehensiveness of the BT parental controls, let’s compare them with family tracker and monitoring app like uMobix.
Feature | BT Parental Controls | uMobix |
---|---|---|
Blocking sites on Wi-Fi | Can block internet categories and specific URLs | Blocks specific URLs but not categories |
Set filter times | Allows inputting days and times for internet access, including homework time | – |
TV parental controls | Has restrictions for certain programmes and content types | – |
Calls and text monitoring | – | Monitors all incoming and outgoing calls and text messages |
Social media apps tracking | – | Tracks social media activity on apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook |
Keylogger | – | Views all entered text to find passwords to apps and websites |
Monitoring internet activity | – | Can show URLs of visited websites |
Conclusion
BT parental controls are useful for protecting your kids online and preventing unchecked internet usage. You can set up BT router parental controls for all connected devices and be in charge of which sites your child visits, whether on the BT hub, BT Mobile, or Wi-Fi hotspots around the UK.
Nevertheless, you will find that BT parental controls are not as comprehensive as a family tracker. Thus, we recommend combining it with a dedicated parental control app like uMobix or similar.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
To access BT parental controls, go to bt.com to manage your extras, including parental controls.
To block adult content on BT, use the [Allowed and Blocked Sites] settings to block the adult content category.
You can restrict internet access on BT using the filter times option on your BT account.
To restrict internet access at certain times on BT, use the filter times setting to choose times when your child cannot access the internet.
BT does not monitor internet activity.
To set up BT parental controls on BT Home hub, go to bt.com and sign in with your BT ID then go to Manage Your Extras > Manage Parental Controls.
BT parental controls may not work on your child’s iPhone if they use Apple private Wi-Fi access or have installed a VPN.
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