Parents may be less in control of children’s online lives than they think, new research finds

New research finds 36% of children chat or play online with people they do not know, while 41% have tried to bypass parental controls.

Mother and daughter having fun watching social media content on smartphone, taking selfie together or playing video games on cellphone app.

Getty/Xavier Lorenzo

Published: August 19, 2026 at 11:29 AM

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Despite most parents using parental controls or monitoring tools, more than a third of children are talking or playing online with people they have never met, new research suggests.

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The findings, published by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), highlight the growing gap between parents’ confidence in the safeguards they have put in place and the reality of their children’s digital lives.

The research involved more than 4,000 children aged eight to 17 and their parents, alongside in-depth interviews with 30 children and their parents.

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Children’s online lives can be more complicated than parents realise

The research found that 36% of children talk or play online with people they only know online, or do not know at all. Among children aged 14 to 16, this rises to 40%.

More than half of children surveyed, 52%, said they would find a way to bypass age checks if they wanted to access a platform or service.

That figure rose to 64% among children whose parents had previously helped them get around an age limit. Nearly a third of parents (31%) said they had done this.

The findings suggest that conversations about online privacy and safety need to keep pace with children’s changing digital habits.

Parental controls are not always enough

Most parents surveyed said they were already using tools designed to monitor or manage their children’s online activity, with 91% reporting that they used controls or monitoring tools.

However, 41% of children said they had tried to get around these controls, and almost half of those children (49%) said they found it easy to do so.

For parents, this can make keeping track of online activity increasingly difficult as children become older and more independent.

The ICO says parental controls can be a useful starting point, but regular conversations with children are also important as the platforms and services they use change.

Location sharing can feel like a trade-off for families

The research also looked at the emotional side of managing children’s digital lives.

Some parents described feeling resigned rather than empowered, balancing a desire to give their children independence with the reassurance that can come from being able to see what they are doing online.

Location sharing was described in the research as a "digital umbilical cord", with some families viewing data collection as a necessary trade-off for peace of mind.

One eight-year-old boy, Theo, agreed to share precise geolocation data with 141 vendors and 71 advertising partners without understanding what he was consenting to.

He said: “I just pressed consent…It’s just to get it away… I don’t know, but I think it means close. It just stops it [the pop-up].”

Why talking about online privacy early matters

The findings are clear: frequent, open conversation works.

Katie Searle, ICO Director of Children’s Strategy

Katie Searle, ICO Director of Children’s Strategy, said: “Children today are growing up in an extraordinary digital world, and it's completely understandable that many parents feel like they're one step behind."

But there is something parents can do. The research suggests that discussions about privacy should start before children become teenagers, helping them understand what they are agreeing to when they use apps, games and other online services.

“The findings are clear: children who discuss online privacy with their parents on a weekly basis are more likely to feel that privacy settings keep them safe. Frequent, open conversation works," Katie says.

The ICO’s Switched on to privacy campaign encourages families to follow three steps: chat, choose and check. This means talking openly about children’s online lives, choosing privacy settings together and checking back regularly as their habits change.

Changes are also being made to online services

The research has been published alongside an update on the ICO’s Children’s Code strategy, which outlines progress in improving how online services protect children’s personal information.

The ICO estimates that changes introduced across several high-profile platforms since April 2024 have helped protect close to five million child users.

Recent work includes commitments from Snapchat to strengthen age assurance measures, alongside improvements to Snapchat and Instagram’s interactive map features to make location sharing clearer for children.

The ICO also says 98% of 596 recommendations made to 28 EdTech providers have been acted upon.

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For parents, the message from the latest research is that online safety is not necessarily something that can be dealt with through one set of parental controls. As children’s digital lives change, keeping the conversation open may be just as important as checking the settings.

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