What is Family Center?
Family Center is a new tool built to help parents and guardians stay informed about how their teen uses Discord while still respecting their privacy. Parents and guardians will be able to see their connected teen’s recent Discord activity through an in-app activity dashboard and weekly email summaries. Through transparency, our goal is to foster productive dialogue about safer internet habits, and to create mutually beneficial ways for parents, guardians, and teens to connect about their experiences on Discord.
You can access Family Center by selecting this link or by heading into your User Settings within the Discord App.
What this article covers:
How to set up Family Center
If you run into any issues while setting up Family Center, please reach out to our Support team for further assistance here.
Desktop/Browser
To set up Family Center, you will need to create a Discord account. If you already have an active Discord account, you can set up Family Center by selecting the [ ] cogwheel button to head into your User Settings.
Parents and guardians can then go to the Family Center tab and toggle the Enable Family Center Tab option under General Settings to access this tool. In order to complete setup and connect on Family Center, we require both parent/guardian and teen accounts to complete this process on the Discord mobile app.
Mobile
To connect to Family Center on your mobile device, parents and guardians can head into their User Settings by pressing their profile icon.
After navigating to User Settings, select the Family Center tab. Once in Family Center, press the “Connect with Teen” button within the My Family tab to scan the teen’s QR code that is located in their Family Center tab under the Connect with Parent option. After the teen has accepted their parent or guardian’s request, both can start using Family Center together.
If you would like to learn how to specifically set up a parent/guardian account, you can check out this article here. If you would like to set up a teen account, you can refer to this article here.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why is Discord making this Family Center?
A: Family Center was built to foster productive dialogue about safer internet habits, and to create mutually beneficial ways for parents/guardians and teens to connect about experiences online.
Q: Why would I want to use Family Center?
A: Family Center allows teenagers to easily share information on how they use Discord with a parent, guardian, or other trusted caregiver in a way that respects their privacy.
Q: I do not want this, can I opt out of Family Center?
A: Family Center is a completely opt-in feature and not mandatory for teens. Although anyone can access Family Center in User Settings, you need to go through a multi-step connection process in order to activate the feature and connect your account with a family member. Even after connecting your account, if you decide you no longer want to use Family Center, you can always disconnect your account from a family member at any time.
Q: By using this - what can my parent/guardian see and not see?
A: We value user privacy and ability to control and customize their account. Connected accounts will not have access to the contents of your messages. Parents and guardians will only see information about:
- Recently added friends, including their display names and avatars
- Servers joined or participated in, including server names, server icons, and member counts
- Users messaged or called in direct messages or group chats, including display names, avatars, and the time of the last message or call
Q: How does this affect my privacy as a user connected with a parent or guardian?
A: When it comes to privacy, we want to make sure you have information and tools available to make decisions that best support you. With Family Center, you have control over whether or not you use this feature, how long you want to use it for, and who you connect your account to. Each step of the way we’ll let you know what information is being shared and who it is being shared with.
We value your privacy which is why connected accounts will not have access to the contents of your messages. Parents and guardians will only see information about:
- Recently added friends, including their display names and avatars
- Servers joined or participated in, including server names, server icons, and member counts
- Users messaged or called in direct or group chats, including display names, avatars, and the time of the last message or call
Q: How will this impact my apps on Discord?
A: Family Center will not have any impact on your apps on Discord.