Establish healthy digital habits for your family with Trend Micro Parental Controls

Reduce your kids and non-tech savvy family members exposure to online threats while browsing the Internet, playing online games, or communicating through social media. Follow these recommended Trend Micro settings for your family PC.

What are healthy digital habits?

Explore ways how you can guide your kids and senior loved ones in developing a positive online presence:

Be mindful of your online privacy.

Regularly review and update your family's (kids and non-tech savvy family members) privacy settings on social media platforms such as:

Facebook

• Use Privacy Checkup to review and adjust your privacy settings on Facebook. You can choose who can see certain information on your profile, like your phone number, email, birthday and relationship status. Show me how.

Twitter

• For Twitter’s privacy and safety settings, go to the Twitter app and click on their profile image to see the menu. Go to Settings and Support > Settings and privacy > Privacy and safety.
  • Audience and tagging
    • Enable Protect your tweets. Only followers and people you approve can see your family's tweets.
    • Set Photo tagging to Only people you follow can tag you.
  • Content you see
    • Disable Display media that may contain sensitive contentto manage the content your family sees.
    • Topics. Manage which topics your family sees first to encourage focused browsing.
    • Explore settings. Set content location for the explore feature on Twitter.
    • Search settings. Hide sensitive content from searches and remove blocked or muted accounts from searches.
  • Direct Messages
    • Keep Allow message requests from everyone disabled so only people your family follows can send direct messages to them.
  • Discoverability and contacts
    • Disable Let people who have your email address find you on Twitter and Let people who have your phone number find you on Twitter so people are unable to find your family by searching for their mobile number or email address.

Instagram

• Make your family's account private. This will allow you to approve who can follow you and see your family's posts. Open the Instagram app and go to your profile. Tap the three horizontal lines in the top right corner. Tap Settings > Privacy > Turn on the Private Account option.

Think before sharing.

• Remind your family to think twice before sharing personal information, photos, or sensitive content online. Encourage them to consider the potential consequences and the possibility of the information being shared beyond their intended audience.
• Advise them to be cautious when sharing personal information publicly, such as their full name, address, phone number, or birthdate.

Be cautious with social media.

• Educate your family on the importance of accepting friend requests or connections only from people they know and trust in real life.
• Teach them to recognize the signs of cyberbullying and how to report and block individuals engaging in such behavior.
• Emphasize the significance of avoiding oversharing on social media and exercising caution when posting personal thoughts, location details, or vacation plans.

Teach critical thinking and online skepticism.

• Provide your family with tools and strategies to evaluate the credibility and reliability of online information.
• Teach them to verify sources, check for multiple corroborating sources, and be wary of misinformation or fake news.
• Encourage them to think critically about the motivations behind the information being presented.

Create a family online safety plan.

• Guide families in creating a comprehensive online safety plan that involves open communication, setting boundaries, and establishing rules for internet use.
• Include guidelines for appropriate online behavior, such as avoiding cyberbullying and respecting others' privacy.
• Establish methods for reporting any concerning or potentially harmful online experiences within the family.

How Trend Micro Parental Controls can help

Parental Controls can be a helpful tool in minimizing senior family members' exposure to online dangers. With Trend Micro Security installed on their device, simply adjust the Age setting to "Custom" to activate the protection. In addition, educating them on safe online habits can also help them stay protected while using the internet.

Block Inappropriate Websites

1. Create your family’s own Windows User Account.
2. Open Trend Micro, then click Family.
3. Click Configure beside Parental Controls.
4. Set a program password, then click Create.
5. Put a check beside Enable website filter rules to block untested websites, block search engines or enable Image Filtering.

   

6. Choose the age group the filters below will apply in the Select an age dropdown.
   Pick Custom to personalize what website categories your family cannot visit.

   

7. When done setting filter rules, click Next.

Limit your Family Member's Internet Access

1. Put a check beside Enable time limits to schedule your family's Internet time.

   You can set a detailed daily schedule or a simple schedule for weekdays and weekends.

   Click on the specific boxes, marking it red to block Internet access on your preferred hours.

   

2. Indicate the number of hours your child can use the computer.

   

3. When done setting time limits, click Next.

Set Time Limits on programs and apps

1. Put a check beside Enable program controls then click Add to include programs you want limit access.

   

2. A summary of the settings and schedule will be displayed. Click Done to finish.

   

3. Click OK to save the changes.

   

Turn ON Social Media Protection

Malicious links and websites are also present on social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and many more. Trend Micro will guide your kids on which links are safe to visit and which are not.

1. Open Trend Micro, then click the Privacy tab.
2. Click Configure beside Social Networking Protection.
3. Toggle the switch to ON.