Netflix announced improvements to the service's parental controls yesterday that introduce new options for parents to control Netflix viewing.
While Netflix did support a profile feature already that allowed parents to create profiles for children to filter movies and TV shows that are unsuitable for children, nothing was keeping children from switching profiles if they knew how to do it.
The improved parental controls that are rolled out currently to Netflix customers worldwide change that; one of the new features allows parents to protect profiles with a Pin. Similarly to how most parental control systems on TVs block certain content with a Pin, Netflix's new Pin protected profiles require that users enter the correct Pin to use the profile.
The custom four digit Pin can be set for each profile individually.
The feature is entirely optional but will prevent viewers who don't have the Pin from accessing the profile. The main idea behind the new feature is to Pin protect regular profiles and leave only profiles for children unprotected.
Netflix's changes don't end here though. Apart from protecting entire profiles with a Pin, it is now also possible to filter out titles by age using country ratings. It is for instance possible to allow only shows or movies that received the 6+ rating or an equivalent used in the viewer's region to ensure that only appropriate content is provided.
Parents may filter individual files or series on top of that. by entering titles directly. These won't appear then on the selected profile including when a user searches for content or browses the selection.
Netflix's Profile and Parental Controls hub in the account settings provides an overview of all profiles and settings. You may change certain profile related settings such as viewing restrictions, the profile lock, or autoplay there directly.
Parents may look up the viewing activity with a click on the "view" button in the Profile and Parental Controls hub to see the recent activity in chronological order.
Closing Words
The new parental control options improve the control that parents have on Netflix significantly. While it is necessary to configure these once, e.g. to protect regular profiles from access and to make sure age filters are set correctly, configuring these options enables far better controls on Netflix.
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