Discord adds new parental controls and privacy tools: Check what's new

Discord's new Family Centre tools give parents more control over who can contact their teens, while keeping chats and reports private to protect user privacy.

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Discord has expanded its Family Centre features, giving parents and guardians more tools to manage their teens’ safety on the platform. According to the Discord support page, the update adds more detailed activity summaries and new options to control who can contact teens, while keeping their private messages hidden.

 

The company said, “Family Center is a tool we’ve built to help parents and guardians stay informed and involved in your teen’s Discord experience while respecting their privacy and autonomy.”

Discord Parental control: What’s new

According to the support page, the new update introduces “Social Permissions,” a set of toggles that let guardians decide whether teens can receive direct messages only from friends or from anyone sharing the same servers. However, Discord said that the message content will remain private, guardians can manage access, but will not be able to read conversations. Teens will also get the option to alert their guardians when they report another user, though details of the report will remain confidential. 

 

The Family Centre’s activity summary now includes more information, such as total purchases, total call minutes and a list of top users and servers over seven days. Both teens and guardians can view this data. Along with viewing your teen’s recent activity in Family Centre, guardians will also get weekly email summaries with an overview of their activity at their registered address.

 

Despite the added visibility, participation in the Family Center remains voluntary. Teens must first share a QR code for parents to scan and then approve the connection. Once linked, guardians can monitor overall activity but cannot directly manage friends or servers.

Discord has been tightening its approach, including introducing age verification in some regions earlier this year. The support page stated that under the UK’s Online Safety Act, guardians must be verified adults aged 18 or above and will need to complete age verification before adjusting their teen’s message request settings.