Unpairing is supposed to erase all content and settings on your watch, but in my case, it did not. If it doesn’t work for you either, tap Settings on the watch, then General > Reset > Erase All Content and Settings.

At this point, you can have your kid put it on (if it’s charged). The watch will say Bring iPhone Near Apple Watch. If you open the Watch app, it lets you choose to Set Up for a Family Member. Aim the phone’s viewfinder at the slowly moving animation to pair, or select Pair Manually.

Apple’s tutorial is pretty straightforward from this point. I picked a passcode that’s easy for my daughter to remember and picked her from my family list. I continued cellular service. Then I set up all the usual features and services for an Apple Watch, including Ask to Buy so she couldn’t buy anything from the app store without my permission, Messages, and Emergency SOS.

I also chose to limit my daughter’s contacts on the watch. First, go to Settings > iCloud > Contacts on your phone and make sure it’s toggled on. Then click out, go back to Settings > Screen Time > Family Member > Communication Limits. You need to request your child’s permission to manage their contacts and approve it from the kid’s watch. On their watch, you can add and rename contacts from your contact list (Dad becomes “Grandpa,” Tim becomes “Uncle Timmy,” and so on).

The last step is turning on Schooltime, which is basically a remote-controlled version of an adult Work Focus. It blocks apps and complications, but emergency calls can still come through. The setup tutorial walks you through how to set up Schooltime on your child’s watch, but if you skip it during setup, you can manage it later. On your iPhone, tap All Watches > Your Child’s Watch > Schooltime > Edit Schedule.

I elected to turn Schooltime on when my child is in school and turn it off during afterschool care, but you can also click Add Time if you’d like to turn it on during a morning class, take a break for lunch, and then turn it back on again. Your kid can just turn the digital crown to exit Schooltime, but that’s OK—you can check their Schooltime reports on your iPhone too.

To manage your child’s watch, go to your Watch > All Watches > Family Watches > Your Kid’s Apple Watch. This is how you install updates and manage settings. For more settings that you can turn on or off, check out Apple’s full list here. For example, you can check health details, set up a Medical ID, or even edit their smart replies.

Fun for Everyone

Just as with a grown-up Apple Watch, the first thing you’ll probably want to do is switch the watch face. Hold down the screen and wait for the face to shrink, and swipe to switch. (You probably also want to buy a tiny kid-specific watch band.)

We got my daughter an Apple Watch, so I’d be able to see her on Find My, and she could contact me via phone or the Messages app, which she does with regrettable frequency.

The Metropolitan Police’s rapid “unchecked” expansion of live facial-recognition (LFR) technology is taking place without clear legal authority and minimal public accountability, says Green London Assembly member Zoë Garbett in a call for the force to halt its deployments of the controversial technology.

Made during an ongoing government consultation on a legal framework for the technology, Garbett’s call for the force to immediately halt its deployments of LFR is informed by concerns around its disproportionate effects on Black and brown communities, a lack of specific legal powers dictating how police can use the tech, and the Met’s opacity around the true costs of deploying.

Garbett’s intervention also comes as the High Court is considering the lawfulness of the Met’s approach to LFR, and whether it has effective safeguards or constraints in place to protect people’s human rights from the biometric surveillance being conducted.

“Live facial-recognition technology subjects everyone to constant surveillance, which goes against the democratic principle that people should not be monitored unless there is suspicion of wrongdoing,” said Garbett, adding that there have already been instances of “real harm” in children being wrongly placed on watchlists, and the disproportionate targeting and misidentification of Black Londoners.

“These invasive tools allow the police to monitor the daily lives of Londoners, entirely unregulated and without any safeguards. The Met repeatedly claim that live facial recognition is a success, yet they continue to withhold the data required to scrutinise those claims.

“It makes no sense for the home secretary to announce the expansion of live facial recognition at the same time as running a government consultation on the use of this technology. This expansion is especially concerning given that there is still no specific law authorising the use of this technology.”

Highlighting in a corresponding report how facial-recognition technology “flips the presumption of innocence” by turning public spaces into an “identification parade”, Garbett also outlined ways in which both the Met and the Home Office can make its use safer in lieu of a full-blown ban.

This includes creating primary legislation with “strict controls” that limits LFR to the most serious crimes and bans its use by non-law enforcement public authorities or the private sector; and openly publishing deployment assessments so that watchlist creation, location choice and tactical decisions are publicly available for Londoners to review.

On watchlist creation specifically, Garbett dismissed the police claim that LFR is a “precise” tool, highlighting how nearly every watchlist used is larger than the one preceding it.

Highlighting how the number of faces being scanned by the Met is “increasing at a near exponential rate”, Garbett likened the forces watchlist tactics to a “fishing trawler” that it keeps adding to so it can find people.

“Data suggests that rather than making a new unique watchlist for each deployment based on the likelihood of people being in the area of the deployment, it seems from the outside that the MPS is just adding additional people on to a base watchlist [it has],” she said.

Garbett also called on the Met to publish the true financial and operational costs of all LFR deployments, arguing that the force has not only failed to provide a compelling business case for the technology, but is actively obfuscating this information.

“The MPS has a history of a lack of transparency. This is perhaps best summarised by Baroness Casey in her review of the MPS where she said, ‘The Met itself sees scrutiny as an intrusion. This is both short-sighted and unethical. As a public body with powers over the public it needs to be transparent to Londoners for its actions to earn their trust, confidence and respect’,” said Garbett.

She added that while freedom of information requests returned in mid-2023 revealed that, up until that point, the force had spent £500,000 on the tech, without up-to-date reliable figures, it is impossible to verify the Met’s claims that it is delivering a greater impact on public safety through LFR.

“The NHS wouldn’t be able to roll out a new treatment without being able to prove it was worthwhile and effective, but it seems that the police operate under their own rules and seemingly answer to no one,” said Garbett.

Computer Weekly contacted the Met about Garbett’s report. A spokesperson said that LFR “has taken more than 1,700 dangerous offenders off the streets since the start of 2024, including those wanted for serious offences, such as violence against women and girls. This success has meant 85% Londoners support our use of the technology to keep them safe.

“It has been deployed across all 32 boroughs in London, with each use carefully planned to ensure we are deploying to areas where there is the greatest threat to public safety. A hearing into our use of live facial recognition has taken place and we look forward to receiving the High Court’s decision in due course. We remain confident our use of LFR is lawful and follows the policy which is published online.”