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Level 1

24 points

Why can my children lock and erase other family member Apple devices from their Apple ID?

I recently setup iCloud Family Sharing for our home of 5 people. My personal and unique Apple ID is the controlling parent ID. Others in the family are my wife and 3 children (1 over 18 and 2 under 18). Today I logged into iCloud from one of my kids Apple ID and noticed that it allows him to see everyone elses device location and also gives him the authority to turn on Lost Mode (which locks the device) and to Erase each device. I then logged out and logged into another childs Apple ID and it was the same thing. They could each see everyone's devices including my personal Mac Book Pro, both the iPads my wife and I use and the family iMac.

Essentially that means my kids each have the ability to erase or turn on lost mode for anyone elses device which is kinda scary. Now, perhaps you are thinking that I somehow messed up and put my kids Apple ID as the Organizer for iCloud family share but I can assure you I did not. When I go into iCloud to see the hierarchy it clearly shows my Apple ID as the Organizer and the others are simply shown as family members and are not authorized to approve purchases. I also do not have my kids Apple ID setup on my personal Macbook Pro or my personal iPad as an account so there's no connection that way.

That said, I also wondered if my kids could really do anything to my personal devices or if it would ask them for my password or lock code before doing anything, so I tried it by logging into my son's iCloud account using his Apple ID. I located my personal iPad and then told it to turn on Lost mode. And sure enough it locked my iPad from my son's iCloud account.

So is this how it's supposed to work or is something wrong with iCloud rights for device management? It seems totally wrong that my other family members have such control over other family member devices.

Thanks

Posted on Jan 18, 2015 5:23 PM

24 replies

sbrown02 Author

Level 1

24 points

Jan 20, 2015 8:31 AM in response to AppleJoe

Joe_7399,

Thanks for the reply. The sharing of device location within a family isn't what concerns me. It's the fact that my kids can Erase (wipe clean) every other family members devices or designate them as Lost which effectively locks the device so it can't be used. Basically my kids have the ability to erase me and my wife's iPads, my Macbook Pro and our iMac. Is this really how this family share is supposed to work?

Seems more logical to me that the owner/user of the device is the only one who should be able to erase or designate a devices as lost or stolen. So I'm okay if my kids can erase their own iPhone, and as the parent/owner I should have that ability as well. But my kids shouldn't be able to erase mine or my wifes devices.

So sharing location information isn't the real concern here.

Thanks

AppleJoe

Community Manager

Jan 21, 2015 9:31 AM in response to sbrown02

Hi sbrown02,

Thank you for using the Apple Support Community. Due to the nature of your issue or question you may find more information by using another one of Apple's support resources - https://getsupport.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.action.

Have a great day,

Joe

tluck

Level 1

4 points

Oct 13, 2015 1:43 PM in response to AppleJoe

I just found out about this too. unbelievably ridiculous hole. i logged into my daughter's icloud account and saw that she could wipe out my phone. luckily she hasn't found out about icloud.com. really makes family sharing useless... since i dont want my kids to have access to my devices.