--- title: "mssgs introduces parental controls that exclude message content by design - Press - mssgs" description: "mssgs has released a Parent Center. Parents can see who their child communicates with, how long they are connected and how far their location sharing reaches, but never the contents of a message. The child requests the link, and it shares nothing until a parent accepts." canonical: https://mss.gs/en/press/parental-controls language: en --- # mssgs introduces parental controls that exclude message content by design The new Parent Center shows a parent who their child communicates with, how long they are connected and how widely a location is shared. Message content remains inaccessible, and the link is requested by the child. **Brummen, the Netherlands**, 21 August 2026 **mssgs**, the independent Dutch group chat application, has released a **Parent Center**: a set of parental controls that allow a parent to see who their child communicates with, how long they are connected each day, and whether they share their location. The contents of a child’s messages remain inaccessible to a parent by design. The feature is available in the desktop application for macOS, Windows and Linux from version 14.0.30, and reaches iPhone and iPad with the next App Store release. It is included in mssgs at no cost, and all data is hosted in the European Union. The design followed a single requirement: that a young person would accept the arrangement rather than work around it. Each of the decisions described below follows from that requirement. The link is requested by the child, it shares nothing until a parent accepts it, either party may end it, and message content is never made available. *The parent’s side of the feature: a connect code to pass to a child, the inbox of pending requests, and the children already linked. A pending request grants no access.* ## The child requests the link; the parent accepts it Linking is initiated by the child in every case. A parent opens the Parent Center and finds a connect code that is short, easy to read aloud, and stable for the account. The child enters that code in their own app, selects the parent’s account, and sends a request. Until the parent accepts, **the link shares nothing at all**. Acceptance is the point at which visibility begins, and it is always an explicit action. Either party may remove the link afterwards: a child is not bound to a link they created, and a parent who removes one immediately stops receiving any information. That sequence is deliberate. An arrangement a young person sets up themselves, and whose scope they can see before it takes effect, is one a family can discuss. An arrangement introduced without their knowledge is one they will learn to circumvent. ## Metadata only, never message content The overview a parent opens contains metadata only. This is not a policy applied on top of the interface: **no endpoint in the feature returns message content**, so there is nothing a future screen could display in error. A connected parent can see: - Who their child exchanges messages with, by name, but not what was said. - How long their child was connected to mssgs on each day. - Whether location sharing is enabled, and how far each share reaches. - Events as they occur: a new friend, a community joined, a location share, a report received. *The overview of a single child: who they exchange messages with, how long they were connected each day, and how far their location sharing reaches. No individual message is reachable from this screen.* ## Connected time rather than screen time The time figure is deliberately not described as screen time. It is measured from the connection the application maintains to the mssgs gateway, which continues while the device is in a pocket, and it will therefore read higher than the figure reported by Apple’s Screen Time. Describing it as screen time would have been the simpler option and the incorrect one, since a parent comparing the two figures would reasonably conclude that one of them was wrong. The overview labels the figure “connected time”, places an idle-discounted “active” column beside it, and explains the difference directly below the table. ## Location reported as reach, not as position The location section reports whether sharing is enabled and who can see it, and states each share in terms of its reach: “can see this from up to 5 km away”, or “can see this from anywhere in the world”. Shares are ordered by reach, so the widest appears first. It does not report where the child is. There is no map, no coordinates and no place name. The events that reach a parent carry a range band and nothing further. This is a data minimisation requirement for minors, and it is enforced on the server at the last point before an event is stored. ## Alerts describe events, not conversations Four events reach a parent as an alert: their child added a friend, joined a community, shared their location, or received a report. Each alert records that the event occurred and who was involved. None carries a message, and a location alert carries a reach rather than a place. Alerts are stored per event and marked as read per parent, so two parents linked to the same child each retain their own read state. *The child’s own screen (left) sets out what a parent will and will not see before any link is made. The alerts list (right) reports events, not content.* ## Age bands rather than dates of birth On iOS, mssgs requests an age band through Apple’s Declared Age Range framework and stores **only that band**: under 13, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, or 18 and over. A date of birth is never stored, and the server route that receives the band is unable to accept one. An account whose band is unknown is treated as under 13 rather than as an adult. Accounts belonging to minors begin with restricted defaults: new conversations, joining communities, posting publicly and location sharing remain disabled until a parent link becomes active. The child’s own screen states this plainly, on the same screen that allows them to resolve it. > Most parental controls make the same trade. They give a parent access to a child’s messages and describe that as safety. We did not want to build that product. A parent should be able to see the shape of their child’s week, who is in it, how long it lasted, how widely a location is shared, and stop there. Supervision and surveillance are not the same thing, and young people can tell them apart. René van Sweeden, founder of mssgs ## Part of a wider safety release The Parent Center was released alongside the remainder of the safety work. Members can report a message, a direct message, a community or a user, and the reported content is retained as it appeared so that it can still be reviewed if it is later deleted. A Reports section records what a member has reported and how each report was handled. Blocking is available from a profile, a message or a direct message, with a list of blocked accounts in settings. Community moderators have a Reported Content queue showing each report with its review deadline and the current state of the vote. Communities in mssgs are moderated by their own members rather than by a central team, and that queue is where the work is carried out. ## Availability The Parent Center is available in Settings in the desktop application for macOS, Windows and Linux from version 14.0.30, released on 4 August 2026, and was extended on 5 August 2026 with the location sharing detail described above. It reaches iPhone and iPad with the next App Store release. mssgs is free to use, carries no advertising, and hosts all data in the European Union. Downloads for every platform are available at [mss.gs/en/downloads](https://mss.gs/en/downloads). Feature Parent Center, in Settings Available Desktop (macOS, Windows, Linux) from v14.0.30; iOS with the next App Store release Price Included in mssgs at no cost How a link starts The child requests it; nothing is shared until a parent accepts Message content visible to a parent None. No endpoint in the feature returns message content Location visible to a parent Whether sharing is enabled and how far it reaches, never a position Age data stored An age band only (under 13, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18 and over); never a date of birth Data location Hosted entirely in the European Union mssgs is a group chat app for friends, communities and teams: channels, direct messages, voice and video calls, built-in games, bots and AI integrations over MCP. It is free to use and available on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux and the web. mssgs is built by RUAL (Deverence Group B.V.) in Brummen, a Dutch software company that has been making business software and no-code platforms since 2009. All data is hosted in the EU, there are no ads, and nothing is sold on. mssgs is entirely self-funded. René van Sweeden Founder, mssgs (RUAL) [press@mss.gs](mailto:press@mss.gs) Deverence Group B.V. (RUAL), Brummen, the Netherlands [Press kit](https://mss.gs/en/press#press-kit) [Back to the press room](https://mss.gs/en/press) ## René van Sweeden Founder, mssgs (RUAL) Brummen, the Netherlands For questions, interview requests or additional imagery, we normally reply within one working day.