Yes — once iOS 27 ships this September, turn on Ask to Browse for any kid under 13. Apple is rebuilding parental controls from the ground up, and this is the centerpiece: your child can't open a new website in Safari without sending you a request through Messages first. It's real control, but it also means you become the approval queue.
Why Apple Rebuilt Screen Time for iOS 27
Screen Time has barely changed since it launched in 2018, and every parent who's used it knows the gap: it blocks categories of content, not specific decisions. A kid can get an age rating wrong, stumble past a filter, or just ask a friend to unlock something. iOS 27 is Apple's answer to years of parents saying the existing system is too blunt. It ships with pediatrician-backed input built into the new age-based defaults, which is Apple's way of admitting the old defaults were a guess.
What Ask to Browse and Contact Approval Actually Do
Ask to Browse is on by default for accounts under 13. When your kid tries to visit a site that isn't already approved, the request goes to you in Messages, and nothing loads until you tap yes.
Contact Approval works the same way for people instead of websites — a new number in Messages, Phone, or FaceTime gets held until you approve it.
Apple also expanded its Communication Safety filter to catch violent and gory images, not just nudity, which closes a gap that's been obvious for a while. All of it lives inside a redesigned Screen Time with age-based presets instead of a settings menu you have to build from scratch.
Why I Love Contact Approval and Ask to Browse Not-so-much
Contact Approval is the one I am actually looking forward to. Most of the sketchy stuff that reaches a kid's phone comes from a person, not a website — a stranger in a group chat, a number passed around at school, a "hey it's me, I got a new phone" text that isn't actually a friend. That's worth a tap-to-approve gate.
Ask to Browse is a different story. I don't want to be a browsing helpdesk, approving every random site a homework link points to, at 9pm, from my phone. For a 15-year-old, that's not safety, it's just friction that trains them to ask a friend to look something up instead. I'd turn it on for a 9-year-old and off for a teenager, and I think most parents land somewhere similar once they've lived with the notifications for a week.
What to Do Before iOS 27 Ships
Don't wait for launch day to think about this. Right now, in your existing Screen Time settings, check what category filters your kid is actually under and whether Communication Safety is turned on at all — a surprising number of parents set it up once and never revisited it.
When iOS 27 arrives, Apple will carry your existing settings forward, but the new age-based presets will overwrite anything you haven't customized. Decide now, not at launch, which kid gets Ask to Browse and which one just gets Contact Approval — that's a five-minute conversation that saves you a September full of approval pings.