ChatGPT finally adds parental control feature to help parents manage their children's AI usage



OpenAI has finally introduced parental control features for ChatGPT, a new feature added in response to a lawsuit alleging that

ChatGPT encouraged teenage suicide .

Introducing parental controls | OpenAI
https://openai.com/index/introducing-parental-controls/




In August 2025, a family filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT contributed to a child's suicide. In response to this issue, OpenAI announced four priority areas: expanding support for people in crisis situations, making it easier to contact emergency services and obtain expert help, enabling connections to trusted contacts, and strengthening protections for teenagers. The company revealed that it is making intensive efforts to implement countermeasures by the end of 2025.

OpenAI sued over ChatGPT's alleged role in teenage suicide, OpenAI admits ChatGPT's safety measures don't work for long conversations - GIGAZINE



In order to ensure that teenagers and people with mental health issues can use ChatGPT safely, OpenAI announced that it would add a parental control feature in October 2025. On September 29, 2025 local time, OpenAI announced that this parental control feature had finally been added.

The Parental Controls feature allows parents to link their account with their child's account and customize settings for a safe, age-appropriate experience. To set up Parental Controls, parents send an invitation to their child's account. Once the child accepts the invitation, parents can manage the child's settings from their own account.



Once accounts are linked, parents can customize their child's ChatGPT experience through a simple admin page in account settings. Parents will be notified if their child unlinks their account.



As part of the parental control features, enhanced protections have been added for linked accounts. When parents and children link their accounts, age-appropriate content filters will be automatically applied to the child's account, including suppression of extreme content, viral challenges, sexual, romantic, and violent role-playing, and extreme beauty ideals. Parents can disable these content filters, but children cannot.

OpenAI wrote about these protections, 'These protections are helpful, but they are not foolproof. They can be bypassed if someone intentionally tries to circumvent them. We will continue to improve them over time and with careful consideration. We encourage parents to talk with their teens about healthy AI practices and what they mean for their families.'

The parental control function can manage the following operations:

- You can set times when ChatGPT cannot be used.
Turning off voice mode will remove the option to use voice mode in ChatGPT.
If you turn off

memory , ChatGPT will not save or use memory when responding.
If you remove image generation, ChatGPT will not be able to create or edit images.
Opting out of model training means your child's conversations will not be used to improve the models powering ChatGPT.



Additionally, the parental control feature has the ability to notify parents if there are potentially serious issues. If the system detects that a child may be self-harming, a small, specially trained team will assess the situation and, if there are signs of serious distress, notify parents via email, text message, or smartphone push notification.

In addition, if OpenAI detects an imminent threat to a teenager's life but is unable to contact a parent, it is working to ensure that appropriate steps are taken to contact law enforcement or other emergency services. Even in these situations, OpenAI takes teenagers' privacy seriously and is designed to share only the information necessary to keep teenagers safe with parents and emergency responders.

'Parental controls are a good starting point for parents to manage their teens' use of ChatGPT,' said Robbie Toney, senior director of AI programs at Common Sense Media, which is collaborating with OpenAI on the development of child safety features. 'But parental controls are just one piece of the puzzle for keeping teens safe online. They're most effective when combined with ongoing conversations about responsible AI use, clear family rules around technology, and proactive engagement to understand your teens' online behavior.'

In addition to this, OpenAI has also launched a parental control feature along with a parental resource page to help guide families on how to use ChatGPT at home. The resource page can be accessed here:

Parental controls to shape ChatGPT for your family
https://chatgpt.com/parent-resources

OpenAI has also announced that ChatGPT will include a feature to automatically detect users under the age of 18.

OpenAI announces that ChatGPT will have a feature to automatically detect users under the age of 18, CEO Sam Altman says, 'For teenage users, safety is more important than privacy' - GIGAZINE



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