Apple previews its biggest parental controls update in years, weeks before UK and US regulatory deadlines

TL;DR

Apple previewed major child safety updates for iOS 27, including Ask to Browse, Time Allowances, and gore blocking, as UK and US regulators push deadlines.

Apple previewed a suite of new parental controls at WWDC 2026 on Monday, introducing tools that give parents more granular authority over what their children can see, who they can contact, and how long they can spend in apps. The updates, arriving this autumn with iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27, land on the same day UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave Apple and Google a three-month deadline to introduce device-level controls that prevent children from viewing or sharing explicit images. The US Congress is also advancing the Kids Online Safety Act, which cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee in March alongside a wave of school-district lawsuits over social media addiction.

The headline addition is Ask to Browse, a feature that...

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