iMessage & SMS safety
Communication Safety, filter toggles, and the four SMS scams every kid will see.
iMessage
- Communication Safety (Settings › Screen Time › Communication Safety) — blur suspected nude images in Messages and warn the child. Does not send images to parents.
- Filter Unknown Senders — Settings › Messages › Filter Unknown Senders.
- Communication Limits — under Screen Time, restrict who can message your kid to contacts.
- iMessage is end-to-end encrypted. Monitoring tools can’t read content server-side; they can only read what’s on the device (via Bark, with permissions).
Google Messages (RCS/SMS on Android)
- Spam protection: on by default.
- Block senders: tap conversation › Block.
- RCS chats support end-to-end encryption between up-to-date Google Messages users, but conversations can silently fall back to unencrypted SMS when one side uses an older device or app — don’t treat it as guaranteed.
Common scam patterns
- “Hi Mom, I broke my phone” — family-member impersonation. Verify by calling the real number.
- Package delivery phishing — “your package is held.” Don’t click.
- Bank/school alert phishing — “your account is locked.” Go to the app directly.
- Wrong-number social-engineering — starts as “Is this John?”, moves to friendly chat, ends as a scam.
Group chat risk
- Bullying clusters form in group iMessage/Google Messages threads.
- Screenshots spread. Once in, hard to leave socially.
- Teach your kid to screenshot + leave + tell you when a group goes bad.