Google aware disabling search on Family Link not working for some users, issue under investigation

Family Link is a parental control system based on a Google account. It is designed for parents to place limits on their children’s devices, to prevent them from developing harmful digital habits.

However, this feature is having issues, according to some reports. It seems that disabling Google search capabilities through Family Link is not working well.

Through Family Link, parents can limit the time of use, restrict content or block Google search..

But, multiple reports are pointing out that not all the restrictions set by parents are working. The most noted is the restriction to the capabilities of Google Search.

According to reports from some users, Google Search would continue to work even after being restricted through Family Link.

Family Link not filtering Google search images

I have safe search turned on in the Family Link app and Google Chrome blocked, yet my child can still view pornographic pics through Google Search and the Images tab. Why????
Source

I have exactly the same bug. In parents’ family link, search was disabled for Google, yet on child device Google can search with no restriction, especially images search, where child can access easily to bypass sites blocked from Chrome . FYI, Chrome is blocked, Gmail is blocked properly and cannot be used on child’s device.
Source

It should be noted that this problem in Google Family Search is not new. In fact, there are similar reports of affected users published in May of this year:

Disabling search on family link not working

I am a parent, my child looked up something bad and I want to disable google instead of taking his phone. I went to Family Link, child, manage settings, android apps google, and turned off search, but he can still search. we both want this fixed.
Source

In addition to the above, a Google product expert reportedly escalated this issue to the development team in late July:

However, there are reports of affected users from just a few days ago:

So far, no Google representative has offered any additional updates on how the situation is going. Therefore, although it is known that the problem was escalated, it is not known when the fix will arrive.

Therefore, affected users can only wait for any new developments in this regard, which will be added to this article once available, so stay tuned to keep you informed.

Featured image: Google Play

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.