Profile locking can be used to prevent certain changes to your Content Policy. It's designed to work well both if you're self-managing your own Content Policy or have an Accountability Partner who can help oversee your Content Policy.
Whether a change is prevented or not depends on what kind of change is being made:
- In general, Profile Locking prevents changes that would make your Content Policy less restrictive. For example, disabling a block rule or adding a website to an allowlist.
- In general, Profile Locking allows (and encourages) changes that would make your Content Policy more restrictive. For example, adding a new block rule or adding a website to a blocklist.
One of our missions at Tech Lockdown is to empower people to prevent compulsive bypass of Content Blocking. One of the ways we do this is by allowing you to lock your own Tech Lockdown profile.
Why?
In most cases, people don't want to unblock Security Threats.
However, when scheduling Social Media usage or blocking Adult Content, some people might be tempted to log in to their Tech Lockdown account and adjust their Content Policy.
Locking your profile allows you to add some friction to making filter settings less restrictive.
Restrictions when a Profile is Locked
When a profile is locked, the following will be prevented:
- Creating new Allow rules
- Adding to existing Allow rules
- Deleting existing Block, SafeSearch, or YtRestricted rules
- Disabling existing block rules
- Re-ordering rules
- Changing rule schedules
- Inviting new members to share the account
- Turning off certain app preferences
When a profile is locked, the following will still be allowed:
- Creating new Block, SafeSearch, and YtRestricted rules
- Adding to existing Block rules
- Disabling Allow rules
- Removing from existing Allow rules
- Deleting Allow rules
- Turning on certain app preferences
- Unlock Preferences
Managing Profile Locking Settings
Lock or unlock your Tech Lockdown Profile.
Profile Locking Indicator
The Profile Locking Indicator should be visible from the dashboard at all times.
On desktop or laptop computers, you should see the Profile Locking Indicator on the top right like this:
On mobile, you should see the Profile Locking Indicator on the top left like this:
If an Unlock Delay is set, you will see the timestamp of when your profile will be unlocked.
If your profile is set to Re-lock Automatically, you will see the timestamp of when your profile will be automatically re-locked.
Unlocking your Profile
Click on the Profile Locking Indicator to unlock your profile. You can also navigate to your Profile Locking Settings manually by going to Settings > Locking Preferences.
To unlock your profile, you'll need to complete each Unlock Step you've enabled previously. If you added multiple Unlock Steps, complete each step to unlock your profile.
If you've set an Unlock Delay, the Profile Locking Indicator will show you how much time you have left until your profile is unlocked.
Unlock Steps
Unlock Steps require you to confirm whether your profile can be unlocked. If multiple Unlock Steps are enabled, you need to complete all enabled Unlock Steps to unlock your profile.
You could choose to lock your profile without requiring Unlock Steps, but we recommend adding at least one method.
Password / Pin
Specify a password or PIN that must be entered to unlock the profile.
If you have an Accountability Partner helping oversee your Content Policy, we recommend working with them to set a password for you. Remember, profile locking only affects your own profile, so this password will need to be used when locking your profile.
If you're self-managing your own Content Policy, you can choose a password you don't remember and have restricted access to following the recommendations in our account self-management article.
Random Text
Require entering randomly generated text to unlock.
Before locking your profile, specify how many characters need to be entered to complete this step. While your profile is locked, you can't reduce the amount of characters, but you can increase it. the current maximum number of characters is 1000 (one thousand).
Random text doesn't rely on you remembering a password. Instead, it makes it harder to unlock your profile by requiring you to spend time and effort manually typing.
Email Pin
Use a Secondary Email address to send a pin required to unlock.
To complete this Unlock Step, you will need to enter the PIN sent to the secondary email address added to your profile.
Learn more: Adding a Secondary Email Address to Lock your Profile
If you have an Accountability Partner helping oversee your Content Policy, we recommend using their email address. If you need to unlock your profile to make a change, you will now need to coordinate with your Accountability Partner to help unlock your profile.
If you're self-managing your own Content Policy, you can make it more difficult to access your secondary email to add more steps between you and unlocking your profile. Follow the instructions in our account self-management guide for specific steps.
Extra Settings
Extra settings can be used to further improve how profile locking behaves on your Content Policy.
Re-lock Automatically
Specify whether your profile automatically re-locks itself after it's unlocked. If enabled, your profile will automatically re-lock after the set time.
We recommend enabling this if you're only making a small change to your Content Policy. In case you forget to re-lock your profile after making the change, your profile will be locked again when you visit the dashboard later.
When you unlock your profile, you will be provided with a prompt asking you to confirm how long until your profile is re-locked again.
Unlock Delay
Specify whether your profile unlocks immediately or after a delay.
We recommend enabling an Unlock Delay primarily if you're self-managing your own Content Policy. Instead of entering a password or spending time and effort entering random text, an Unlock Delay will require you to wait before making any changes.
When locking your profile, you will be provided with a prompt asking you to confirm the unlock delay.
Secondary Email Notifications
If you add a secondary email address to your Tech Lockdown profile, you can enable Email Notifications so that a trusted person is automatically notified when you lock or unlock your profile.
Learn more: Adding a Secondary Email Address to Lock your Profile
Profile Locking and Account Sharing
It's important to note that profile locking is personal to your own login to your Tech Lockdown account. If you've shared your account with another admin, that person won't be constrained by your profile restrictions.
This means that you could set up limitations for yourself without impacting other admins, who may have different requirements (or might not want any restrictions at all).
Lock, Don't Block!
Some people might block techlockdown.com to prevent themselves from logging into their own dashboard. Don't do this! Use profile locking instead. Here is why.
Preventing yourself from logging into your Tech Lockdown account is risky:
- What happens if you find more content that you want to block?
- What if you need to adjust rule scheduling to optimize a healthy habit you are developing?
- What if you need to troubleshoot your connection by viewing your DNS logs?
Preventing yourself from logging into the account that controls your Content Filtering settings is risky and we don't recommend it. We solve this with Profile Locking.
That's why we designed our Profile Locking with the following in mind:
- Allow people to easily add to their restrictions
- Prevent people from making their accounts less restrictive (unless they unlock their profile)