Overview
- WIRED detailed how a custodial mother said her ex, as the designated organizer, used Family Sharing to track the children, enforce Screen Time limits, and relax them on his own days.
- Apple support told her they could not move the minors to a new family group without the organizer’s consent, and Apple declined substantive comment beyond pointing to support documents.
- Under Apple’s rules, children under 13 must belong to a family group and cannot leave on their own, and Screen Time locks can also prevent older children from exiting.
- The common workaround is to create new Apple IDs, which permanently discards purchased apps and years of photos, videos, messages, and other digital history.
- Google and Microsoft described vague escalation or documentation paths, while experts urged dual-organizer roles, custody-order overrides, audit logs, lossless child transfers, and specialist support, with no company announcing concrete fixes.