The new Family Centre Update Empowers Parents with Teen Safety Tools.
Discord has rolled out advanced parental controls and privacy features to its popular Family Centre, designed to boost teen safety and give parents greater oversight of their children’s activities on the platform. These updates aim to help parents and guardians monitor online interactions while preserving user privacy—an increasingly vital concern for social media and chat app users.
New Discord Parental Controls and Privacy Tools
The latest Family Centre update introduces “Social Permissions,” giving parents flexible toggles to manage who can send direct messages (DMs) to their teens. Guardians can limit incoming DMs to mutual friends or expand them to anyone sharing the same server, strengthening parental control over online communication. Importantly, while parents can regulate DM access, the actual chat content remains private—ensuring privacy rights for teens.
Discord now enables teens to alert their guardians if they report another user, providing an extra layer of safety while keeping report details confidential. This functionality empowers teens to seek support without sacrificing their autonomy or privacy.
Improved Activity Insights for Parents
Discord’s Family Centre now features an upgraded activity summary, displaying useful data such as total purchases, aggregate call minutes, and top users or servers engaged over the past seven days. Both teens and their guardians have access to these summaries, and weekly email updates are sent to guardians for easy tracking of online activity.
Teens must voluntarily initiate parental oversight by sharing a QR code for guardians to scan, which preserves user autonomy and privacy. Once linked, parents can monitor overall platform activity but cannot directly interfere by adding or removing friends or servers, ensuring balanced oversight.
