Google has been sending email alerts to 12-year-olds informing them that they’re eligible to disable parental controls once they turn 13.
Many parents rely on supervision and controls to ensure that their kids are enjoying a safe internet experience, but Google is letting children turn off these features and letting them know how.
On January 11, Melissa McKay, president of the Digital Childhood Institute, shared an email her youngest son had received from Google about removing parental controls.
“A trillion dollar corporation is directly contacting every child to tell them they are old enough to ‘graduate’ from parental supervision. The email explains how a child can remove those controls themselves, without parental consent or involvement,” she explained in a Linkedin post.
Google lets 13-year-olds decide to disable parental supervision
The screengrabbed email from Google, addressed to ‘Mike,’ told the user that because his birthday was coming up, he could change his account to get access to more apps and services.
It further stated that children over 13 who had supervision added to their account could choose to stop supervision.
This angered McKay, who accused Google of “asserting authority over a boundary that does not belong to them.”
“It reframes parents as a temporary inconvenience to be outgrown and positions corporate platforms as the default replacement,” she added. “In nearly ten years as an online safety advocate, this is among the most predatory corporate practices I have seen. Absolutely reprehensible. Corporations should stay the hell away from our kids.”
This post was amplified on X by Matthew Stoller, a researcher at the American Economic Liberties Project, who shared McKay’s concerns.
These types of emails are standard procedure from Google.
Google’s support page states: “When a child turns 13 (or the applicable age in their country), they get an email to inform them that they’re now eligible to update their account. The parent who supervises the account also gets an email.”
By turning off the controls, parents can no longer set up a downtime, allow or block apps, or use location sharing.
“Children can decide if they want to turn [location sharing] on again.”
They also won’t be able to use YouTube Kids anymore, and some videos or channels that were previously blocked will be available.
As noted by Piunikaweb, in the US, COPPA only protects users up to age 13. The moment a child turns 13, those limits vanish. From that point on, they’re treated as an adult by data trackers.
Google’s setup is built around that cutoff. As soon as it’s legally allowed, users are pushed out of the locked-down “child” category and into the far more lucrative standard tier.
However, Melissa McKay argued that the law doesn’t authorize Google or other companies to contact children about removing parental controls.
Nonetheless, it’s certainly something parents may want to be aware of, especially if they’re concerned about the types of content available to their kids.
