Chris Hunter’s technology column: How to guard I-pad purchases from young children

Hello and thanks for stopping to read my first Chad column. My name is Chris and I’m the o2 Guru at the store in The Four Seasons.

The official description of me is a friendly tech expert. What that actually means is that if you have an issue with a phone or tablet, you can come and see me. If you want an idea of what your device can do, come and see me.

I will be doing my best to answer questions that you can email in to me at [email protected] with the word Guru in the subject line

My first topic I am often asked is how to make sure a consumer does not end up with a bill if their tablet/phone is used by a child

I’m sure you have all seen the stories that turn up in the press from time to time about a child using their parents’ tablet and buying extras that end up with them getting a bill for thousands.

There are simple and easy ways to ensure that this doesn’t happen to you.

If you have an iPad/iPhone/iPod on ios7

If you go into settings and then general on your iDevice, you will find an option for restrictions. Go into this section and press on ‘enable restrictions’. It will then prompt you for a 4 digit pin number.

Once you have made one up and entered it twice you can then select what parts of the phone they can access. If you scroll down you will see the option for ‘In-App Purchases’.

Turn this off and your little darlings can’t start buying things in their favourite app.

If you have an android device.

This is a little harder as, at the moment, it isn’t in there as standard. My personal recommendation is for you download an app called ‘Kids Place – Parental Control’ from the play store on your device.

Once this is installed it will ask you to setup a pin number and then you can setup exactly what apps you want your kids to access.

This will also allow you to have time limits set so they can’t spend all evening playing games when there is homework to be done.

The company behind kids place also have child-friendly browsers and video players available to install so you can control what they can see and watch.

I hope somebody finds this useful and it does save you money.

Please email in with any questions you would like answering on the above email address or make an appointment with me by going to o2.co.uk/guru and clicking on ‘book an o2 guru’ and then searching for Mansfield, or another store if that suits you better.

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