Get started with a supervised iPhone or iPad
If your employer or school issues you a iPhone or iPad, it might be supervised. Learn what it means to use a supervised device, what the owner can see, and how to tell if your iPhone or iPad is being supervised.
This article is intended for those who use a supervised iPhone or iPad from their employer or school. If you’re an administrator and want to set up supervision, use Apple Business Manager, Apple School Manager, or Apple Configurator to set up your devices.
Supervision gives schools and businesses greater control over the devices that they own. With supervision, your administrator can apply extra restrictions like turning off AirDrop or preventing access to the App Store. It also provides additional device configurations and features, like silently updating apps or filtering web usage.
By default, your iPhone or iPad isn’t supervised. Supervision can only be turned on when you set up a new device. If your iPhone or iPad isn’t supervised now, your administrator needs to completely erase your device to set up supervision.
Check to see if your iPhone or iPad is supervised
You can find out if your iPhone or iPad is supervised by looking at the settings for your device. The Supervision message is found at the top of the main Settings page.
Your organization also has the option to display a custom ownership message on the Lock Screen using the Shared Device Configuration profile payload.
Find out what your administrator is supervising
If your iPhone or iPad is supervised, the organization that owns your device has the ability to install a profile to control what features your device has access to.
If you want to see what features your administrator has modified from the default settings, you’ll need to check your settings.
Tap Settings > General > VPN & Device Management. If there is a profile installed, tap on it to see what type of changes are made.
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To learn more about the features changed for your specific organization, ask your administrator whether these settings are enforced.
If your administrator is monitoring your location
You might see a message in your settings that your business or school can monitor your internet traffic and locate your device. The only time your administrator can view the location of your iPhone or iPad is if they put your device into Managed Lost Mode.
When this mode is turned on, it reveals the location of the device to the administrator. If your administrator puts your device into Managed Lost Mode, your device locks and you will see a message on the Lock Screen. Your organization can’t track the location of the device without locking it and showing a notification.
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