Family Safety App FAQs

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Review our FAQ section or reach out to us directly with any of your questions.

What do I do if an offender contacts my child?

If you suspect something is wrong, or you receive an alert that an offender has contacted your child, first talk to your child. Ask if he/she knows the person. If not, or if the communication is concerning, save any texts or images. Then contact your local law enforcement listed in the app or dial 911.

What is included in the Free OffenderWatch App?

As Part of our Free subscription, you can:

View the interactive map showing you and your family’s locations
View registered sex offenders’ residences near to your phone at any time
Search the registry by address, or view offenders’ residences near to family members on the map
See detailed profiles on any registered sex offender
Monitor your child and receive alerts when your child enters a desired location or returns to it. (e.g. child arriving or leaving school or home)
Contact local law enforcement in the event of an emergency
Browse content for tips and advice on how to talk to your child about sex offenders
Be notified in the event a new sex offender moves into your neighborhood

What is included with a Family Watch Paid Subscription?

While access to the app and sex offender registry is free, a Family Watch subscription provides access to our premium safety monitoring features at just $4.99 per month for the entire family. Those features include:

Receive alerts if your child:

is contacted by someone on your watch list ( or for IOS if the child establishes a contact for that person)
lingers near a registered sex offender’s residence
is contacted by someone on the sex offender registry (or creates a contact for a registered offender on iOS devices)

Search for names on the sex offender registry (child coaches or teachers for example)

How do I set up a monitor for my child?

To establish tracking, you must install the OffenderWatch Kids app on your child’s phone.

Tracking can then be set up in a couple of steps. You will need to:

Add your child to your family profile,
Install the OffenderWatch Kids App on your child’s phone. (You need access to your child’s phone.)

1. Add your child phone to the Family profile.

Click Family to manage your Family
Click Add New Member and enter your child’s name, device type and phone number
Click Add New Family Member
A text message with two links will be sent to your child’s phone.

2. Install OffenderWatch Kids on your child’s phone.

When you added your child phone to your Family, a link was sent in a message to your child’s phone. Follow the instructions in the message to download the OffenderWatch Kids App on your child’s device.
After the Kids App is installed, you may open it on the child’s phone.
Go back to the text message and click the second link to initialize monitoring.
Be sure to set location monitoring to “always” in the settings for the Kids App on your child’s phone. iOS phones in particular seem to want to fix this setting as “only when using app” and this will not provide the level of monitoring you need.

Success!
‍Now you can get back onto your parent phone and track your child on the map and find any sex offenders that reside nearby. You can also monitor your child’s movements and receive alerts as they enter or leave areas you list (like school or home). If you have a paid subscription, you will get location alerts if your child lingers near or in an offender’s residence, alerts of unwanted contacts with offenders, and a monthly email with information about your child’s activity.

How do I get arrival / departure notifications for my child?

You must have the OffenderWatch Kids App installed on your child’s phone.

Open the app on the parent phone and click on the profile button in the bottom right-hand corner. Then click on locations and on the next page, tap New Location. Now you can either enter the address or drag the map to the area where you would like to set up the geofence. You can adjust the location radius with the slider. Click on next to choose which children you would like to protect on the app and then click on save location.

How do I set up a Watch List?

You must have the OffenderWatch Child App installed and monitoring configured.

Use the Watch List to get an alert should your child get contacted by someone you are concerned about. Consider listing an ex with a protective order, a known bully, or a creepy uncle. Click on Profile then Watch List. Add the person’s Name and Phone Number.

How does the OffenderWatch App work?

The OffenderWatch App is an application that resides on your child’s device, iPhone, or Android smartphone. With a Family Watch paid subscription, the app compares the information from people calling, emailing, or sending messages to your child’s device against law enforcement databases of sex offender information. We will alert you if a registered sex offender contacts your child using their registered phone, text, or email. (Or for IOS phones if the child adds a contact for an offender to their contact list) The OffenderWatch App also monitors your child’s location and will notify you if the device lingers near or in a registered sex offender’s home address.

What is Child Check In?

Child Check In will send a message to your child asking them to acknowledge their status. This can be useful if their location has not updated in some time. Locations update only when the phone moves in a substantial way. So, if your child is stationary for a long time, it will show the same location as its last movement indicates. Once the child acknowledges the Child Check In, the location is updated, and other information is forwarded to our servers for checking activity. To request a check in, find your child on the map and tap the Request button. If the location does not update within a few minutes, please contact us at support@offenderwatch.com for assistance.

How do I upgrade to the newest version of the app?

The Offenderwatch App has a parent app and a kids app.

For iOS, either app will auto update if you have your device set to accept auto updates. If you update manually, then the app will incorporate new features after you update the app from the Apple store. We recommend you set you and your child phones for auto update.

For Android, the parent app may be downloaded from the Google Play store. The parent app will update automatically if you have your device set to do automatic updates (recommended) . However, the kid's app is obtained directly from our servers. When we have an update, we will send a link to the child phone for updating.

The version number for the Parent App is on the bottom of the Help Page. For the Kids App it is in the lower right corner of the app page.

How is the OffenderWatch App different from other parental control applications?

Information on registered sex offenders’ internet and phone accounts is not available generally to the public. The OffenderWatch App is the ONLY app that partners with law enforcement and has access to data about offender emails and phone numbers.

Will my child be safer after I start using the OffenderWatch App?

No application can guarantee that your child will never receive any unwanted communications. However, your child will certainly be safer using the OffenderWatch App since the app monitors communications from people who are known to prey on children.

There is more you can do. Follow these Online Safety Tips.

What do I do if I forgot my family password?

The easiest method to recover your password is to open the app and click forgot password on the login screen. Now enter your email address and click reset. You will be sent an email with further instructions.

How do I change my password?

If you are logged in, click on Profile located at the bottom right of the screen. Click on reset password. Enter your current password. Then enter your new password twice.

How do I update my home address?

Click on the profile at the bottom right of the screen. In the profile, click on the email under your name, then enter your new address.

How do I update the phone number for the parent account?

Click on profile at the bottom right of the screen. In the profile, click your email under your name, then enter your new phone number.

How do I change my parent email?

Click on profile at the bottom right of the screen. Click on manage notifications. Then choose the name of the recipient you would like to change and update their email.

How do I change my child’s email?

After logging into the app, click on the child’s name. You will see the Child profile page where you can add and remove emails. Remove the old one and add the new one.

We monitor Microsoft, Yahoo and Gmail addresses. Many school addresses are supported by one of these services. Ask your school which one they use.

How do I add another parent?

Click on Profile located at the bottom right of the screen. Click on manage notifications. Now you can add others to be notified. It is not necessary for everyone to have the parent app installed on their phone to be notified.

What offender data is used by the app?

The OffenderWatch App uses data provided by law enforcement agencies who have elected to participate in the OffenderWatch App program, as well as data from other public sex offender registry sources. The offender data includes offender address, phone numbers, email, and other internet identifiers not available to the public but made available by law enforcement to aid with community safety.

Because OffenderWatch is a business partner with thousands of agencies in the United States, we have been able to gain access to this information on your behalf.

How do I get a refund?

Please contact us at support@offenderwatch.com for assistance.

How do I block a phone number from future calls or text messages?

To block a phone number from calling your child in the future, you will need to access the child’s phone, find the phone number in the recent call history, and then access the information on that number. One of the options when you tap the info button will be a choice to “block this caller.”

How do I block emails from a specific address?

Log on to your child’s email account and scroll down to the unwanted email. Most email applications will have an option to “block sender.”’

How do I set the ability to Read Contacts?

To allow the app to read contacts on your child’s device, the app will need you to go to settings on your child’s phone and select the OffenderWatch Kids app and permit the app to read contacts. This will enable contact log protection so that you will be alerted if your children contact a registered sex offender.

How do I set location services on?

It’s very important to leave location services “on” for your child’s phone so the OffenderWatch App can monitor and send you notifications if your child’s device is near a sex offender’s residence. If location services are turned off, you will receive a notification advising you that this feature won’t work.

To turn these services on, follow the steps below:

For iPhone Devices:

Open the Settings App.
Scroll down to OffenderWatch App.
Set Location to be on “Always.”

For Android Devices:

Open your device’s Settings app.
Select Apps.
Select the OffenderWatch App.
In App Info, Click on Permission.
Set Location permission to “Allow all the time”

I got an alert on an offender and had an option to ignore the offender. Why would I ignore a contact?

Sometimes sex offenders are known to you or your children. They may even be relatives. If you feel that contact with these offenders is not a danger to your child, you can mark a phone number, email, or location as OK so that it is ignored for future alerts. To do this, tap or click the “Ignore This Offender” button next to the alert about that offender. You may want to choose this option so that you are not constantly alerted about offenders you feel present no risk.

What happens when I contact local law enforcement?

If your child receives a threatening or soliciting message from a registered sex offender, or you suspect criminal behavior, save the texts and images, then contact your local law enforcement office listed in the app or dial 911.

Please note that the sex offender may not be in your local sheriff or police department’s district—but they will know how to contact other agencies to get information about the offender. The process may take some time. Be patient. Carefully monitor your child’s communications and talk to him or her about safety with strangers and to avoid this person.

If you have other questions or need help, you can always contact us at support@offenderwatch.com.

What if my child keeps turning off location services or otherwise disables the application?

If your child turns off location monitoring or disables/deletes the OffenderWatch App, you will receive a warning alert based on us not receiving an updated location over a period of time. You should act when you receive this warning. Sometimes children will try to hide information about who they are communicating with online. Explain to your child that the OffenderWatch App is a tool to help protect them from bad people online. If you receive a notification that the app’s location has been turned off or if it has been deleted, ask your child if they have been tampering with the app.

Apple devices also have a setting that prevents deletion of apps. From the home screen, Tap Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions. Make sure Content and Privacy Restrictions is On. Now tap iTunes and App Store Purchases, then set Deleting Apps to Do not Allow.

If you think it is a technical problem with the app and need further help, contact us at support@offenderwatch.com.

Does Law Enforcement see my child’s data?

No, Law Enforcement does not have access to any of your child’s data unless you authorize it. The OffenderWatch App does log certain data related to sex offender contacts and alerts to support any subsequent investigation. However, the data is held private and is not shared unless you authorize it.

Can I still use other parental control programs along with the OffenderWatch App?

Yes, the OffenderWatch App should not interfere with any other parental monitoring products. The OffenderWatch App does not monitor all activity on your child’s devices, and some unwanted activity may come from predators who are not registered sex offenders.

However, one of the best safeguards against online predators is talking to your children about what is right and wrong when chatting online.

Where can I read the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use?

Your privacy and safety is important to us. You can read the privacy policy here: Privacy Policy

You can get all the legal details here in the Terms of Use: Terms of Use

we want to hear from you

Contact OffenderWatch®

Do you have questions about the Family Safety App or helpful feedback to offer our development team? Message us anytime or call 1-888-WATCH12 Monday through Friday between the hours of 7 AM - 7 PM CST.

a lifeline to local agency support

Contact Law Enforcement

OffenderWatch® is the only app that partners directly with local law enforcement to cross-reference sex offender data from over 4,000 participating agencies with geographic information system (GIS) map resources to provide reliable, dynamic location tracking and records access to help safeguard your entire family.

If Family Safety App users have a specific concern regarding a registered offender or a child who may be at risk, our inbox feature enables click-through access to contact your local law enforcement agency for direct assistance.