App Store Guideline 5.5

More privacy
for kids.

Your action can change the privacy of millions of kids.
Time to end the MDM exception for parental controls.

Why This Matters

🔓

MDM Watches You

MDM profiles grant third-party apps access to user location, app usage, email accounts, camera, messages, and browsing history. Apple itself called MDM "incredibly risky" for consumers in 2019 when it initially removed such apps.

🛡️

The FamilyControls API Exists for This

Since iOS 15 (2021), Apple provides three frameworks purpose-built for parental controls that preserve privacy through tokenized identifiers and sandboxes.

👶

Children Deserve Stronger Protections

Most affected are children. MDM allows granular behavioral data collection, continuous location tracking, and browsing monitoring — all in the background without their knowledge.

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Five Years Is Enough Time

The FamilyControls API launched in September 2021. Apple has since expanded it with iOS 16, 17, 18, and beyond. The migration window is over.

Take Action

Open Apple's Guideline Feedback Form

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Select iOS as platform and 5.5 - Mobile Device Management as guideline.

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Remove MDM exception for parental control apps.

Current language (excerpt):
"…and in limited cases, companies using MDM for parental control services or device security."

Requested change:
Remove this clause from Guideline 5.5. MDM should be restricted to commercial enterprises, educational institutions, and government agencies — as originally intended. No parental control exception.

Why:
1. The Screen Time API has matured. Apple shipped FamilyControls, ManagedSettings, and DeviceActivity with iOS 15 in 2021 — nearly five years ago. These frameworks were purpose-built to replace MDM for parental controls. The migration window is over.

2. MDM grants disproportionate access. MDM profiles expose user location, app usage, email accounts, camera permissions, and browsing history to third parties. Apple called consumer MDM use "incredibly risky" in 2019. That risk hasn't changed.

3. Children deserve architectural privacy protections. The Screen Time API tokenizes app identifiers and runs restrictions in sandboxed extensions — privacy by design. MDM bypasses all of this. The users most affected are children.

4. Competitive unfairness. Developers who migrated to the Screen Time API operate under strict privacy constraints. MDM-based competitors retain far greater data access and device control. The exception rewards those who didn't adopt Apple's privacy-first framework.

5. "Limited cases" is unenforceable. The current language provides no criteria for when MDM is acceptable vs. not. This creates inconsistent enforcement and incumbency advantage.

The exception was added in June 2019 as a stopgap while Apple built proper parental control APIs. Those APIs exist now and have been available for five years. The stopgap should be removed.
This aligns Guideline 5.5 with the privacy-first principles Apple champions across its ecosystem.

Ohana — Privacy-First Parental Controls

Help protect children's privacy.

Ohana is built on Apple's Screen Time API. We believe every child deserves the protection of the strongest privacy standards iOS has to offer. Apple built the right tools — let's help them close the loophole.