Family Setup & Privacy

Family Setup allows you to pair a family member’s Apple Watch with your iPhone. For certain features you will have the ability to request to receive certain data from your family member’s Apple Watch.
 

Family Setup is designed to protect your information and enable you to choose what you share.

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  • Family Setup allows you to pair a family member’s Apple Watch with your iPhone.
  • Some watchOS features available with Family Setup may require use of personal data.
  • For certain features you will have the ability to request to receive certain data from your family member’s Apple Watch or the ability to see logs of relevant activity. This includes things such as your family member’s health data, Schooltime unlocks, location, and contacts data. For health data and Schooltime unlocks, the information will be sent to Apple end-to-end encrypted solely to allow the sharing of the relevant information and logs.

Family Setup allows you to pair a family member’s Apple Watch with your iPhone. Family Setup requires that you and your family member are a part of the same Family Sharing, and that you are the family organizer or a parent/guardian in your family group. If you do not have Family Sharing, you will need to set it up, or if your family member does not have an Apple ID, you will need to create one.

With Family Setup, certain watchOS features will be available for use even when the family member’s Apple Watch is not in proximity of your iPhone. Not all watchOS features may be available with Family Setup. There may be additional watchOS features that are not available if the Apple Watch does not have a cellular plan or depending on the age of the family member, such as the ability to place calls. When you add an Apple Watch to Family Setup with cellular capability, the Apple Watch serial number and cellular hardware identifiers will be sent to Apple so that the cellular plan can be configured.

For certain features, you will have the ability to request to receive certain data from your family member’s Apple Watch. This includes information such as your family member’s health, location, and contacts data. Your family member may have the ability to share or stop sharing this data with you. If you request the ability to access the health data of your family member, the member will be prompted on their watch. If your family member chooses to share their health data with you, this information will be sent to Apple end-to-end encrypted. This data will be tied to your Apple ID solely to allow Apple to enable the sharing of this information.

With Schooltime, you have the ability to determine a window of time when use of certain features of the Apple Watch will be restricted. If your family member unlocks their watch during Schooltime, you can view unlocks in the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. This information is sent to Apple end-to-end encrypted, but will be tied to your Apple ID solely to allow Apple to provide information about unlocks.

With Family Setup, you can also view logs and screenshots from your family member’s Apple Watch on your iPhone.

You can disable Family Setup at any time through the Watch app on your iPhone, and your family member can disable Family Setup through Settings on Apple Watch. Your family member can also change their preferences, including sharing of data with you, at any time in Settings on Apple Watch.

Apple retains personal data only for so long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, including as described in this notice and in accordance with Apple’s Privacy Policy, or as required by law. When assessing retention periods, we first carefully examine whether it is necessary to retain the personal data collected and, if retention is required, work to retain the personal data for the shortest period permissible under law.

At all times, information collected by Apple from your use of Family Setup or any of the features enabled through Family Setup will be treated in accordance with Apple’s Privacy Policy, which can be found at www.apple.com/privacy

Published Date: December 12, 2022