How to Use Covenant Eyes on iPhone: Step-by-Step Guide
- kingdomsexuality
- Mar 24
- 6 min read
Try Covenant Eyes FREE for 30 days when you use the code KS30 at sign-up. Or click this link.
Covenant Eyes is our favorite software out there for protecting devices against pornography and providing accountability in overcoming pornography addiction.
Today, we want to share some tips with you on securing your iPhone when using Covenant Eyes, as there are some things you need to be aware of to boost its effectiveness.
What is Covenant Eyes and How Does It Work?
If you’ve never heard of Covenant Eyes before, here’s a quick recap on how it works:
Monitoring
Once you have installed Covenant Eyes on your iPhone, it begins monitoring the activity on all of your devices. We recommend installing it on all devices in the home and office because they don’t have a device limit like with other software.
When installed, their technology monitors the device screens for explicit activity using its Screen Accountability technology. This technology uses artificial intelligence that knows what to look for. It randomly screenshots the device while it running in the background, and the AI analyzes the screenshots. The screenshots are then shrunk, blurred, and stored on their encrypted servers for 30 days.
If an explicit screenshot is found, that screenshot is then flagged for review on your Victory app. Victory is the app used to see one’s device activity and the captured screenshots. Screenshots are categorized into 3 types: explicit, suggestive, or clean. These screenshots will then be put into a report.
Accountability
Now, Covenant Eyes wouldn’t work very well if these reports are only sent to yourself because you could just ignore them. So there is an accountability aspect built in that allows an Ally, a trusted friend, mentor, or accountability partner, to receive your reports regularly (you can set the frequency to whatever you like) and keep you accountable as to your device activity.
Your Ally will be emailed a summary of your activity during that period, and all flagged activity will be at the top of the email for review.
Blocking
Covenant Eyes also blocks explicit content and websites. They have millions of websites in their database that are set to be blocked so they can not be accessed on a device with Covenant Eyes installed. Your Ally can also add other websites to that list manually if there is a website that you don’t want the user to access. Lastly, and one of our favourite aspects of Covenant Eyes, is that SafeSearch is automatically turned on. This means that explicit material is blocked within a search engine being used, whether that’s Google or Bing, etc. It also locks in YouTube Restricted Mode so no explicit material can be accessed on YouTube.
Try Covenant Eyes FREE for 30 days when you use the code KS30 at sign-up. Or click this link.
Limitations of Covenant Eyes on iPhone
Okay, now that we know how Covenant Eyes works, there is a downside to it. It doesn’t monitor activity on all of the iPhone. In fact, no software of this type will be able to monitor the entire iPhone, this is because of the way that Apple allows apps to access the device on the back end, or something like that (this whole part is way beyond our knowledge, we just know that this is the same issue with all blocking software).
This means that Covenant Eyes will not monitor any app outside of Safari or the Covenant Eyes app (Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, etc.). However, any links clicked from those apps will be monitored as they are opened in a browser-type setting.
How to Secure Your iPhone with Covenant Eyes
So, what can we do about it? A few things, although none of them bulletproof, can certainly make it better.
Setup A Screen Time Passcode
First and foremost, you need to set a Screen Time Passcode on your iPhone that you can give to someone else without knowing it yourself. This is crucial because everything you can do to get around Covenant Eyes on an iPhone is on the other side of the Screen Time Passcode.
Here's how to do this:
Open the Settings app, then tap Screen Time.
Tap 'Turn on Screen Time'.
Tap 'This is My iPhone'.
Have someone else enter a Screen time Passcode.
On the "Screen Time Passcode Recovery" screen you have two options:
Tap "Cancel" in the top left corner so that we can't override the Screen Time pin with our Apple ID. Tap "Skip" on the popup.
Have whoever is setting up Screen Time for you enter their Apple ID and password so that there is a way to recover it if they forget it.
Once you’ve set a Screen Time Passcode, you need to change a few settings that can only be changed by inputting the Screen Time Passcode.
Here's how to do this:
Open the Settings app, then tap Screen Time.
Tap Lock Screen Time Settings.
Have someone other than the iPhone owner enter a 4-digit passcode.
Whoever created the passcode, enter their Apple ID for Passcode Recovery.
Enable Screen Time & Downtime
Next, we recommend enabling Screen Time. This effectively locks down the iPhone once either a certain amount of time on the phone or certain apps have been reached, or it will lock down the phone during a certain period.
Here’s how to do this:
Go into Settings on your iPhone.
Tap on Screen Time.
Tap on Downtime.
Toggle Scheduled to the “on” position.
Set it to “Every Day” and set your desired times.
Make sure you toggle on “Block at Downtime”. This ensures that once Downtime is reached, the user can not unblock it themselves and the passcode must be input to do so.
There will be a One More Minute option where the user can use that app for one more minute before the phone locks for good. This “One More Minute” option will reset at midnight. The downside is that Apple has not allowed a way to turn this off; however, it can only be selected once before the iPhone is locked down, and the user must have the restrictions passcode input to have more time.
Disable Downloading and Deleting Apps
Some users may worry about the ability of the user to just delete the Covenant Eyes app and thus make it obsolete. So, you need to disable the ability to delete apps. You will also have to opt to disable the ability to install apps because certain apps are work-around to Covenant Eyes altogether.
Here’s how to do this:
Go back into Settings and into Screen Time.
Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions.
Tap iTunes & App Store Purchases.
Tap Installing Apps. Select Don’t Allow.
Tap Deleting Apps. Select Don’t Allow.
You can also turn off In-app Purchases here if you wish.
By disabling the ability to delete apps, the user can no longer delete the Covenant Eyes app or uninstall it from the iPhone.
Use Apps In Browser
If a user still wants to use apps like Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, etc, the best practice is to use those apps in the Safari browser and not in the app itself. This way, Covenant Eyes will monitor the activity of the user because remember Covenant Eyes on iPhone can track the Safari app but not the native app.
Yes, this does make for a poorer user experience, but what’s more important, the user experience or staying safe with your internet activity?
Restrict Certain iPhone Content Natively
Apple does allow you the ability to turn on monitoring within the iPhone itself. This is helpful for some of the areas that Covenant Eyes doesn’t monitor, but by no means is it sufficient on its own.
Here’s how to do this:
Go back into Settings and into Screen Time.
Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions.
Tap App Store, Media, Web, & Games
Under Web Content, tap Limit Adult Websites
Here is also where you can limit what content the user can open when it comes to Music, TV Shows, Movies, Books, Apps, and more!
Conclusion & Best Practices
We hope this helps you feel more secure using your iPhone in conjunction with Covenant Eyes. By no means is it perfect, and if this is still a fresh issue, we would encourage you to see out an Android-based phone where Covenant Eyes can monitor the whole device until the user has had a significant time of sobriety and you feel it’s a safe time to transition back to iPhone.
Got any questions? Let us know in the comments below!
Please note that the same restrictions apply on iPad but NOT on Mac. On a Mac, Covenant Eyes is able to monitor the whole device.
Try Covenant Eyes FREE for 30 days when you use the code KS30 at sign-up. Or click this link.
Comments