When your Circle device is connected with your home network router, you're able to manage any device that connects to your Wi-Fi or over Ethernet to that router. There are several ways that kids might attempt to circumvent Circle, so we recommend preventing evasion attempts from ever occurring by taking a few proactive steps outlined below.
Secure your Circle app
If a kid gets access to your Circle App (or installs it on their own device) in an attempt to manage Circle Home Plus or your family mobile devices, you might notice changes that you didn't make.
If this occurs, you can take the following steps:
- Ensure that your child does not know the login credentials to your Circle account or does not have access to your passcode for Circle 1st generation my looking at your phone's texts. If you suspect they do know your credentials for Circle Parental Controls change it using the instructions here.
- Ensure your child has no access to your phone or doesn't know its passcode.
- Put a Lock PIN on the Circle App itself. Open the Circle menu from the home screen, tap "Manage" (Circle 1st Gen), or "Settings" (Circle Parent Controls), then look for Lock PIN.
- Check to see if their device has the Circle 1st generation or Circle Parental Controls app installed and set up as a parent device. If so, delete the app. For Circle Parental Controls make sure you change your Circle account login credentials using the instructions here.
Secure your Network
Anyone with administrator access to the router can configure how devices in your home connect to the wider Internet, as well as to each other, and these configurations can be used to prevent Circle Home Plus from operating properly on the network. We recommend restricting administrator-level access to the router.
We recommend only allowing parents to have access to the router's configuration by logging in. Keep those different than the credentials for your home network. If you need assistance with this, please consult with your router's user manual to find out how to change the router login settings.
Some parents have decided to physically hide or secure their Circle Home Plus hardware in a fashion where it can't be found or accessed.
Set Restrictions on Devices
Enterprising kids might also try to modify network settings on their device. Because of this, one of the best things that you can do is restrict administrator-level access to your family's desktop computers, laptops, and any other devices with admin controls. Administrator-level access allows a user to tamper with the basic functionality of the device's networking ability, including how internet traffic enters the router. With enough knowledge and persistence, kids with admin access to a device can configure it to circumvent Circle Home Plus.
Many kinds of internet-enabled devices will allow you to create user profiles for individual family members and decide what level of access that family member should have. The process depends on the operating system, and you can use the links below to learn more about how to set this up on a couple of the most popular operating systems:
Not all devices are capable of creating multiple user profiles. Please consult the manufacturer or operating system documentation for more information.
Limit Access to VPNs and Proxies
VPNs and proxies are technologies (both hardware and software) that act as go-betweens to provide security for online activity, protect user identity, and guard sensitive information related to their time online using the internet. Because these technologies are employed to hide online activity, Circle Home Plus will be unable to filter content while a user employs a VPN or proxy.
Fortunately, Circle is equipped with a VPN & Proxy Filter Category which blocks access to many common and popular VPN and proxy services. We strongly recommend using this Filter to ensure that Circle Home Plus is able to manage your network activity properly.
VPN & Proxy services are constantly changing. While we attempt to keep our system as current as possible, we cannot guarantee that every service is covered. If you encounter one that manages to bypass Circle, please let us know!
Notifications
If something prevents Circle Home Plus from connecting to the internet, any phone with the Circle App installed as a parent device will receive a push notification. Check out this article for information on the types of notifications Circle can send and what they mean.
Looking for ways to resolve evasion issues on mobile devices? Click here to learn more!