A different idea of oversight

Most apps that promise “parental controls” do one of two things: monitor everything through a separate spyware-style tool, or monitor nothing (which works fine until it doesn’t).

Shoal takes a third route. Oversight is part of how the family works. Family admins (usually parents, but any adult you trust) hold the family’s key, so they can open the conversations their children are in. The app gives them a read-only oversight view of every conversation a child in the family takes part in — no extra software, no secret mirroring, nothing the child can’t know about.

Can I see my child’s messages?

Yes. As a family admin you get a read-only view of:

  • Every conversation a child is in within the family
  • Every conversation a child has with a Connection — a friend in another family that admins on both sides have agreed to. The other family’s admins can read that conversation too.
  • Flags raised by the family’s word and link rules
The Safety view: anything a word rule flagged, then each child's chats.

What can’t family admins see?

Oversight covers children’s chats, not everyone’s:

  • Conversations between adults in the family
  • Families the admin doesn’t belong to
  • Anything at all, once an admin is removed from the family

Being straight about the rest

Oversight is between you and your family — but it isn’t the only way content could be read. Shoal holds the keys that make oversight possible, so a way for Shoal to decrypt messages could be built. None exists today — no admin tool or server routine decrypts content, so Shoal staff can’t see your family’s conversations — and we explain exactly what that means on the security page. We think parents choosing a messaging app for their children deserve that level of detail.