Hi there. Almost the weekend — and another busy one.

Thank you all for the feedback you sent last week about the apps that your children are on you didn't know about.

I know some parents checked to see what was happening on phones and iPads and found some surprises. We cover more in this week's newsletter — specifically, apps that look really innocent. Calculators disguised as 'vault' apps, with images, notes and even other apps hidden behind them.

This also reinforces the importance of something we've been working on for a few weeks.

Today is the launch of the Wired Parents Platform Safety Scorecard. It rates 16 of the apps your child actually uses — Instagram, TikTok, Roblox, Discord, ChatGPT, all of them — across six safety categories.

You pick your child's age, tick the apps they use, and get a report showing exactly where the risks are, ranked by severity.

We will be updating it with the more mainstream apps that we know are being used by the under 18s but if you have any specific apps you are concerned about and would like added, please email us and let us know.

It is free, independent, and no platform had a say in their own score. You can jump straight in here, or read more about it further down the newsletter.

Grab your coffee. Lots to catch up on.

— Heidi

There is an app on your child's phone that looks exactly like a calculator. Type in the right passcode and press equals, and it opens a hidden folder containing photos, videos, messages, or entire social media accounts your child has no intention of you seeing.

They are called vault apps, and they are significantly more common among teenagers than most parents realise. The most widely used ones right now include Keepsafe, Calculator Vault, Hide It Pro, Vaulty, and Private Photo Vault. Some have tens of millions of downloads. They are free, available in both the App Store and Google Play, and many carry benign age ratings.

The part that surprised me most: vault apps are no longer just third-party downloads. Both Apple and Google have built vault-like features directly into their operating systems.

On iPhones running iOS 16 and later, the built-in Photos app has a Hidden Album that can be locked with Face ID.

On Android 15, Google introduced Private Space, a completely separate, password-protected area where apps can be installed and hidden.

Neither of these can currently be disabled through Apple's Screen Time or Google's Family Link, even on a supervised device.

Why this matters beyond privacy: the concern is not that teenagers want some privacy. That is normal and developmentally appropriate. The concern is what vault apps enable when a young person does not fully understand the consequences. Research published in JAMA Pediatrics found that nearly 15% of teenagers aged 11 to 17 had sent a sexual image, and over 24% had received one.

Children often do not know that storing an explicit image of a person under 18, including themselves, can be illegal regardless of who took the photo or whether it was shared. Vault apps have also been linked to sextortion cases, and the Silicon Valley Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force lists them specifically as tools used in exploitation cases involving minors.

Three things to check this week:

Look for two calculator icons. Every phone ships with one. A second is almost always a vault app.

Search the App Store on your child's phone. Type "vault," "hide photos," or "secret." If any result shows "Open" instead of "Get," it is already installed.

Check storage. Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage (or the equivalent on Android). A utility app using 50MB or more is storing content, not calculating sums.

Finding a vault app does not automatically mean something serious is happening. Teenagers use them to hide embarrassing memes, keep a personal diary, or store content they consider private. Have the conversation specially about what they understand about the legal and safety risks of storing certain kinds of content.

Read the full guide: The Hidden Apps Your Child May Be Using to Keep Secrets →

For the second time in six weeks, the House of Commons voted on 15 April to reject a proposal that would have banned children under 16 from social media. The vote was 256 to 150. But the headline is misleading. This was not a decision to say social media is fine for children. It was a decision about how and when to act.

The bill as passed gives ministers broad new powers to act through secondary legislation once the current consultation concludes. The Science Secretary now has the power to restrict or ban children of certain ages from specific social media platforms, limit access to addictive features like autoplay and infinite scrolling, restrict children's use of VPNs to get around controls, and raise the digital age of consent. These powers do not require a fresh act of Parliament.

107 Labour MPs abstained rather than vote against the ban, a sign of how much pressure the government is under from within its own party. The NSPCC welcomed the consultation approach but said platforms must be required to prove their services are age-appropriate before children can access them.

What UK parents should expect: a ban is not coming immediately. But significant restrictions almost certainly are. Once the consultation closes on 26 May, the government has committed to acting by summer 2026, with regulations following in months rather than years.

The one thing UK parents can do right now: respond to the consultation before 26 May. It is genuinely open to individual responses, not just organisations. If you have a view on whether a ban is the right approach, or whether you would rather see platforms redesigned, this is the moment to say so. Search "Growing Up in the Online World consultation" on gov.uk.

Read the full analysis: UK Rejects Social Media Ban for Under-16s — What Comes Next →

How safe is Roblox, really? What about TikTok? Is ChatGPT OK for a 12-year-old? These are the questions we get asked most often, and until now, the answers have been scattered across different guides, buried in platform settings pages, or just unavailable.

So we built something.

The Wired Parents Platform Safety Scorecard rates 16 platforms across six categories: content risk, contact risk, privacy, parental controls, data collection, and transparency. Every score is verified against platform documentation, regulatory actions, and trusted sources. No platform had a say in their own score.

You select your child's age, choose the apps they actually use, and get a personalised safety report showing exactly where the risks are, ranked by severity.

A few findings that stood out:

X scored 1.5 out of 4 — the lowest of any mainstream platform. Adult content is explicitly permitted, parental controls are effectively non-existent, and the trust and safety team has been dismantled. The app stores rate it 17+.

Instagram made the biggest improvement of any platform after introducing mandatory PG-13 content filtering in April 2026. Teens cannot opt out. It went from one of the riskier platforms to having the best parental controls of any social media app.

Character.ai scored 1.7 and is the highest-risk AI platform we assessed. Safety experts recommend against use for anyone under 18.

YouTube has the best parental controls of any platform we scored, including a new feature that lets parents set the Shorts feed limit to zero.

For younger children, there is a toggle that shows age-appropriate apps by default if your child is under 10 or between 10 and 12 — but you can switch to "show all apps" to check any platform.

The scorecard is free, independent, and will be updated every time a platform changes its safety features. If you find it useful, forward this email to another parent. The more families using it, the more pressure platforms face to improve their scores.

🇧🇪 Belgium (Flanders) — New entry on the tracker. On 3 April, the Flemish regional government announced a binding minimum age of 13 for social media platforms deemed harmful to minors. TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram will be required to implement age verification. Notably, the governing coalition rejected calls from partner parties for a higher 15 or 16 limit. Flanders is going lower than the European trend, not higher.

🇫🇷 France — The Senate passed its own version of the under-15 ban on 31 March, but with a significant twist. Rather than a blanket ban, the Senate created a two-tier system: a blacklist of "dangerous" platforms maintained by regulator ARCOM would be outright banned for under-15s, while other platforms would need parental consent. The two chambers now have to reconcile their versions before a final vote.

🇦🇹 Austria — On 27 March, the three-party coalition announced agreement in principle on an under-14 ban. Draft legislation is due by the end of June. The ban will target platforms by criteria like "addictive algorithms" rather than a named list. No coalition consensus yet on how age verification will work.

🇬🇧 United Kingdom — MPs voted 256 to 150 on 15 April to reject a social media ban for under-16s for the second time. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill now gives the Science Secretary powers to impose restrictions via secondary legislation. Consultation open until 26 May 2026.

See where every country stands on the Wired Parents Country Tracker, updated every Thursday →

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Roblox is splitting into age-tiered accounts from June. Children aged 5 to 8 will automatically get a "Roblox Kids" account with no chat and access limited to games rated Minimal or Mild. Children aged 9 to 15 will get "Roblox Select" with limited chat and Moderate-rated games. Over 50% of Roblox users have now completed an age check via facial scan or ID. If your child plays Roblox, their account will change automatically. You do not need to do anything, but it is worth knowing what the new tiers look like and checking that your child's age is recorded correctly.

Maine signed a statewide school phone ban into law. All Maine public schools must have a bell-to-bell phone ban in place by 1 August 2026. The Massachusetts House also voted 129–25 on 8 April to ban under-14s from social media, require parental consent for 14 and 15-year-olds, and ban phones in all Massachusetts public schools bell-to-bell. The bill would take effect 1 October 2026 if passed by the Senate. House Speaker Mariano called it "among the most restrictive in the entire country."

Last week I asked: What has worked in your house to keep phones out of bedrooms at night?

Overwhelmingly people said a family charging station somewhere central was what they have in place.

The most up to date research says to keep technology out of bedrooms especially for charging overnight. Sleep research is also pointing to the fact that lack of sleep is the biggest contributor to poor mental health in young people today.

The 30 April Ofcom deadline is thirteen days away. Six of the biggest platforms your child uses — Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook and Roblox — have been told to explain what they are actually doing to keep children safe. Ofcom will publish what they say in May, alongside new research on how children's online experiences have changed during the first year of the Online Safety Act. That report will tell us, for the first time, whether any of this is working.

The second phase of the New Mexico trial against Meta begins on 4 May. This is where a judge decides whether Meta must change how its platforms operate, not just pay damages.

Massachusetts Senate could vote on its under-14 social media ban and school phone legislation at any point. The House passed it 129 to 25 on 8 April.

Until next Thursday!