Why doesn’t Screen Time Content & Privacy Restrictions have a setting for Private Wi-Fi Address?

Parental controls on home wi-fi routers frequently let you block devices individually. This is an improvement on just turning off the wi-fi at bedtime. You assign kid’s phone to kid’s profile, set no-internet hours for the profile, and you can have yours but he can’t have his. 

This works by identifying the device by what’s called the MAC address. MAC address can be “fixed,” as in never changes, and then everywhere the phone connects has a record that the phone has been there, which can be a privacy problem. The remedy for that is what is called “rotating” MAC address, where the address changes itself regularly, so it can’t be traced so far back. This setting is called “Private Wi-Fi Address.” It can be set for each network you connect to and it defaults on.

A kid whose parent is using router-based parental controls can learn how to make their MAC address update, which makes the network think it’s a new phone, and away they go.

Screen Time Content & Privacy Restrictions does not have a setting to default Private Browsing off, or to prevent editing of Private Browsing settings. It should.

Do not tell me that if you’ve got Screen Time then you don’t need router parental controls. They are not the same thing.