Family account management - impossible to change children's privacy settings??!

JamesLumia820 · Jan 2, 2017

It seems family settings are completely broken to the point that child accounts are uneditable if you're using xbox live. Steps to reproduce using Windows 10 PC:

- create adult account (standard MS account) & log in

- whether in xbox win10 app, or in https://account.microsoft.com/family#/ create a child account

- try to edit their privacy settings on this page: Sign in to your Microsoft account

- If you're logged in as adult, their account won't be listed as a member of your family (even though it will be listed on the above 'family' page). And if you are logged in as the child, you just get redirected to a support page.

Upshot: it's impossible to change privacy & online safety settings for child accounts - meaning that it's impossible for children to join Minecraft Realms, as you need to enable multiplayer games for them to be able to join.

This renders the whole family safety infrastructure useless, as you need to create adult accounts for children in order for them to use Realms.

(I've spent literally hours on this - and with Microsoft support - and it seems to be an ongoing issue with no resolution in sight.)

:)

BobMcFly247 · Jan 2, 2017

Share Games

It should be working to set up a family on your main console and add both children's accounts to the family there. Also set your "family" console as homeconsole for the children accounts, by logging into the children account on the "family" console and change
the homeconsole setting there.

Tahoebagel · Jan 2, 2017

Family member not showing up

My account (teen) says that it is part of a family with an adult, and that I cannot change any privacy settings. However, when I log into the adult account, it says that the teen account is not actually in that adult's family. When I then try to add the
teen account to the adult's family, I get a message saying that the teen is already in a family. This makes it impossible to change any of the settings as the teen account is stuck in a family with no one to remove them. If you can help fix this, thanks.

McMoglee · Jul 10, 2018

why hasn’t Microsoft answered this yet?? It’s ridiculous..your support page has “trending topics” none of which are the real trending topics like child account management issues. And your support forums are filled with loyal customers asking the same question
and you don’t answer any of them??

I have the same issue, every time I select allow on my sons privacy settings, it goes right back to block when I hit the submit button. No indication, or prompt telling me happened. Anything you do cover in your support is an endless loop of pages.

Example:

Troubleshooting privacy and safety settings

Goes to

How to change your child’s privacy

We’ve tried that already we know how it’s supposed to work, the problem is it doesn’t.

I’ve changed his account privacy settings on both Xbox’s he plays with to “no restrictions” and...surprise surprise, it’s still restricted.

McMoglee

why hasn’t Microsoft answered this yet?? It’s ridiculous..your support page has “trending topics” none of which are the real trending topics like child account management issues. And your support forums are filled with loyal customers asking the same question
and you don’t answer any of them??

I have the same issue, every time I select allow on my sons privacy settings, it goes right back to block when I hit the submit button. No indication, or prompt telling me happened. Anything you do cover in your support is an endless loop of pages.

Example:

Troubleshooting privacy and safety settings

Goes to

How to change your child’s privacy

We’ve tried that already we know how it’s supposed to work, the problem is it doesn’t.

I’ve changed his account privacy settings on both Xbox’s he plays with to “no restrictions” and...surprise surprise, it’s still restricted.

XBF Chris J

Hello there,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. In order to manage the privacy settings of a child account, you will have to add an adult account to the family first :

Add members to your Microsoft family

You will need to add this child account to an adult accounts family. you can then follow the instructions on this link to manage the child account's privacy settings :

Xbox One online safety and privacy settings for parents and children

Hope this helps!

choppyseize

Hi once an age is set it's permanent. This is to stop kids from changing there age after the fact to bypass things. You can change the age but it won't be recognized.

You need to start a family account and make a parent profile

https://support.xbox.com/xbox-one/security/add-family-member-on-xbox-one

This way you can make your own account and adjust privacy settings and stuff for the children.

It's impossible for 2 accounts to be linked to one email. Each Xbox Live account is separate.

andersonpassos

Thank you for contacting us! I'm Anderson, an Independent Consultant and a Microsoft user like you.

good morning

To change the privacy settings your account must be an adult account, otherwise you will not have access.

see in your privacy settings:

https://support.xbox.com/en-us/help/family-onli...

if your account is for a child, you need an adult account to link your account and manage your privacy settings

The configuration of privacy was something required and regulated by the authorities, justly requested by parents so that their children do not have contact with a toxic community without parental permission.

NumberBubbles56

I tried to go to the privacy settings on his account but I get an error message. QUOTE Children are restricted from making changes to their own privacy and online safety settings UNQUOTE

Is there no way to find out to which family he belongs?

Family account management - impossible to change children's privacy settings??!