Enhanced Parental Controls Introduced in ChatGPT

On September 29, OpenAI rolled out new parental control features in the web and mobile versions of ChatGPT. This decision comes after a lawsuit was filed by the parents of a teenager who took his own life. The parents claim that the chatbot allegedly provided him with harmful advice. This is reported by Reuters.

The new settings allow parents to enable enhanced protection by linking their account to their teenager's account. One party sends an invitation, and control is activated only after confirmation from the other party. With these new features, parents can restrict access to sensitive content, monitor whether ChatGPT remembers previous conversations, and determine if these conversations can be used for training OpenAI's models, as stated by the company on social media X.

Parents can also set "quiet hours," blocking access at specific times of the day, disable voice mode, and image generation and editing features. However, they will not have access to the teenager's chat history. In exceptional cases where systems or moderators detect serious threats to the child's life or health, parents may receive notifications with the minimum necessary information for protection. They will also be notified if the teenager unlinks their accounts.