Parent FAQ
Straight answers to the questions parents ask most: whether you can reach your child, what LockedIn can see, and what happens after school.
The short version
- Your child can always call you or 911.
- LockedIn never sees messages, photos, browsing or social media.
- When the school day ends, the phone is your child’s again.
- It’s free for families. Your school pays.
Reaching your child
Yes. Your child can always call you or 911. Depending on how your school set LockedIn up, the Phone app stays available, or your child can step out of LockedIn at any time; the school just sees that they did. For everyday messages, the front office works the way it always has.
Your school can unlock every phone on campus with one tap from its dashboard, and phones lock again when the emergency ends. Every phone shows two buttons: I’m safe, or I need help. A help request goes straight to school staff, and they can chat with your child. While Emergency Mode is on, the app shares the location of students who are on campus, and of any student who asks for help, with school staff so they can account for everyone. That location is erased when the emergency ends, and every access is logged.
Privacy and location
No. During school hours the phone checks for itself whether it is inside the campus boundary, and LockedIn keeps only on campus or off campus and roughly how far from the line, never coordinates or a trail of where your child went. It collects no location after school. The one exception is an emergency your school declares.
No. LockedIn never collects texts, calls or call logs, the photo library or microphone audio, browsing or searches, social media, contacts or files, or which apps your child opens.
Day to day
No. Once the school day ends, the phone is your child’s again. At most schools it unlocks on its own; at others your child unlocks it the same way they locked in, and nobody is notified.
Yes. Students install the app on their own phone and sign in with their school email. There is no device-management profile, so the school never takes control of the phone.
It uses some battery during school hours, because it checks in to confirm the phone is locked. Keeping the app updated helps. If the drain looks unusual, tell your school’s LockedIn contact so we can look into it.
Cost and exceptions
No. Your school pays for LockedIn, and the app will never ask a student or parent for payment details.
Talk to your school. At most schools it can put your child on a 504 plan in LockedIn, which blocks only social media, games and entertainment, so a glucose monitor or another medical app keeps working. At schools that use Guided Access, it can exempt your child from a single rule instead, such as keeping Bluetooth on for a glucose monitor or hearing aid.
Whether it helps, and who to ask
Research says it can. A London School of Economics study found phone bans improved test scores by 6.4% of a standard deviation, about five extra days of school a year, with the biggest gains among the lowest-performing students. Research from the University of Texas at Austin found the mere presence of a phone reduces available cognitive capacity, and a Norwegian study found smartphone bans reduced bullying.
Start with your school: it sets the hours, the rules and the consequences. For a technical problem, write to support@lockedinapp.co. For a question about your child’s data, write to privacy@lockedinapp.co.
Still have a question?
Ask your school first: it sets the hours, the rules and the consequences. For a problem with the app, write to support@lockedinapp.co. For a question about your child’s data, privacy@lockedinapp.co.