Netflix Gaining Expanded Parental Controls, More Prominent Ratings

Monday March 5, 2018 2:11 PM PST by Juli Clover
Netflix today announced a platform-wide update to introduce expanded parental controls that will give parents more granular access to the television shows and movies their children are watching.

A new PIN parental control for individual movies and TV shows is being added, so parents will be able to block access to specific content if so desired.

. We understand that every family is different and that parents have differing perspectives on what they feel is appropriate to watch at different ages. While we already provide PIN protection for all content at a particular maturity level for Netflix accounts, PIN protection for a specific series or film provides families with an additional tool to make decisions they are comfortable with.
Netflix also plans to begin offering more prominent maturity level ratings for a series or a movie once a Netflix user hits play on a title. Ratings are available before starting a movie or a TV show, but Netflix is expanding their availability to make sure members are "fully aware of the maturity level as they begin watching."


According to Netflix, these parental control changes will be rolling out to Netflix members on all Netflix-compatible devices "in the coming months."

Tag: Netflix
15 comments


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cknibbs
7 months ago
Parental controls are one of my biggest issues with Netflix. I love that they are getting more attention. Unfortunately even tho the kids have their own profile nothing is stopping them from backing out of the kids profile and going into mine or my wife’s profile. Maybe I’m missing something?
Rating: 3 Votes
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BasicGreatGuy
7 months ago
Good move by Netflix. As sneaky as many kids are, a lot of parents will welcome the help with apps like Netflix.
Rating: 1 Votes
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OlliFlamme
7 months ago
good stuff off course. I wouldn’t mind to give an approval in the fashion of the AppStore parental controls.

Kid sends request, i get to read the parental guidance info, and approve by biometric confirmation... is that so far fetched maybe?
Rating: 1 Votes
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rcooked
7 months ago
Actually pleased with this level of control. Kids do a good job policing themselves, but this can’t hurt.
Rating: 1 Votes
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MrZippyUK
7 months ago

Parental controls are one of my biggest issues with Netflix. I love that they are getting more attention. Unfortunately even tho the kids have their own profile nothing is stopping them from backing out of the kids profile and going into mine or my wife’s profile. Maybe I’m missing something?

Exactly.

Profile PIN projection, that’s what we need!
Rating: 1 Votes
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LincolnsiPod
7 months ago
They need to fix the maturity ratings which half the time make no sense, and should indicate why it received the rating it did instead of the generic, vague TV-MA.

I just watched an awesome TV-MA show that had no cursing, no racy scenes, the violence was muted and would have been fine for teens and even pre-teens to watch. ????

Then there was a show rated TV-14 (I forgot the name) that had full frontal nudity. o_O ????????? WTF Netflix?
Rating: 1 Votes
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cknibbs
7 months ago

This change stops them, because the PIN requirement applies to all profiles.

Personally, I have no need for the PIN, since my kids are too young to be that sneaky. But I wish I could get more fine-grained control over what is displayed in the kids profile.


I don’t want to have to set up and block individual titles all the time. Biggest requested feature for me is pins for profiles, an option to launch Netflix on the profile screen instead of the last person who used it, and the ability to add select shows to kids profiles. For example, my kids love planet earth, but it’s unavailable on the kids profiles. I’d love to be able to be in my profile, and have an add to profile button so I could add planet earth to my kids profile. My kids don’t need the ability to browse all of Netflix content, but I do want the ability to curate what they can browse.

There are so many movie posters (scary, overly specialized) I don’t even want them to see let alone shows I want them to watch.
Rating: 1 Votes
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mollyc
7 months ago
Nice. My kids have their own “accounts” on the kids side but there is stuff on the full side I don’t mind them watching and some stuff in the kids side I find really inappropriate. Would be nice to give distinct approval for certain things.
Rating: 1 Votes
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