Parental controls are a way to restrict what non-administrator accounts can do on the computer, with the aim of allowing parents to restrict what their children can do when using the computer unsupervised or under limited supervision.

This functionality can be used in other situations ­– such as other carer/caree relationships – but is labelled as ‘parental controls’ so that it’s easy to find, as that’s what most people will be looking for.

The parental controls for any user can be queried and set using the Parental Controls application. This lists the non-administrator accounts in tabs along its top bar, and shows their current parental controls settings below. Changes to the parental controls apply immediately.

Restrictions on using the computer can only be applied to non-administrator accounts. The parental controls settings for a user can only be changed by an administrator, although the administrator can do so from the user’s account by entering their password when prompted by the Parental Controls application.