what does user authetication in screen time mean

This is showing up a lot on my son‘s phone, but one day last week it says he had six hours of user authentication. That seems excessive and I’m wondering what he’s doing to cause that. I know sometimes he’ll use the one more minute bypass. Would that cause it?

The responses provided to this thread (e.g. "how to enable and manage screentime" are not helpful nor relevant.

I've had a LOT of trouble with ScreenTime over the years: Alas, what is clearly intended to be a helpful, beneficial tool actually becomes problematic when it functions in inexplicable ways.

In this case - my daughter's device was out of her room and she had no access to it - and yet, ScreenTime reports that starting around 1AM, she has had HOURS of time spent on 'User Authentication'. As an IT Security professional, I'm well aware of what terms like Authentication and Authorization mean - and I sure can't make sense of the term applied in this setting.

Does it mean the phone was sitting at a 'prompt' waiting for FaceID, TouchID or Passcode? No evidence that this is the case.

Hey Apple - what does ScreenTime usage of "User Authentication" mean? What situations could / would cause this to occur?

Hi Abi! According to your question and description it might just be trying to verify that it's you trying to update usually use Face ID!

This may help --> Parental Controls through Screen Time for… - Apple Community