Facebook has added an update to Messenger Kids that lets parents see and control how their kids are using the messaging app. This new option is accessible by parents through the Parent Dashboard in the main Facebook app. Parents therefore have the freedom to see more details regarding who their children are messaging and video calling. Furthermore, parents can also see the full history of people blocked by their children in the app while at the same time viewing a log of recent images sent and received by the child.

The new update comes with an option that allows parents to download all of their kid’s information, which is quite similar to the data-download feature present in the main Facebook app. Since its launch in December 2017, Messenger Kids has faced severe scrutiny with some child advocacy groups calling for the app to be shut down. Last year, Facebook admitted that a mistake had allowed children to take part in group chats with people who had not been approved as contacts by their parents.

Even though Facebook has made a number of changes to the way blocking works on Messenger Kids, children are still capable of interacting with blocked contacts when in the same group chat. However, the group chat will warn kids if at all it contains someone that they have blocked initially. Furthermore, children can now be able to unblock contacts by themselves if they so desire and any conversation with a blocked contact is still going to remain in their inbox to give the option for parents to review.

Facebook has put a lot of emphasis on the fact that they do not share information about Messenger Kids users with third parties. In addition, they do not use their data for advertising purposes. However, going with the for-profit company’s historic inability to safeguard user data, a lot of questions still remain regarding the existence of Messenger Kids in the first place. Well, this is a question to be answered by the company itself.