Is the PlayStation App Safe? A Review for Parents

Harmful Content 😲

There are several content areas parents should pay attention to. Even if parents restrict the games a child can play on console, mature content may still show up through friends, captures, profiles, store pages, or gaming news. Parents should use PlayStation’s age restrictions and user-generated content settings to limit what children can see and share.

Predation 🚨

Predation risk is one of the biggest concerns with the PlayStation App. The app includes text messages, parties, and voice chat, which can make it easy for kids to communicate with other players away from the console. While these features are designed for friends, many kids add people they meet through online games, and those “friends” may still be strangers.

Voice chat is especially important for parents to understand because conversations happen in real time and can be harder to supervise. Kids may encounter bullying, profanity, sexual comments, manipulation, grooming, scams, or pressure to share personal information. If a child uses the PlayStation App, parents should lock down communication settings, approve friend requests carefully, and make sure the child knows how to block and report anyone who makes them uncomfortable.

Privacy 🔒

Privacy is another area parents should think through before allowing the PlayStation App. The Game Captures feature can create potential privacy risks because screenshots and video clips may reveal usernames, gameplay interactions, or other personal details, allowing content to be shared with friends, groups, or supported social media apps. However, Game Captures are not widely used or considered a high-risk feature compared to direct messaging. Parents should still review privacy settings, limit who can interact with their child, and talk with kids about not sharing personal details, images, location clues, school information, or anything that could identify them offline.

Parental Controls ✅

PlayStation offers stronger parental control options than many apps, but parents need to set them up. The main tool parents should know about is the PlayStation Family app, which lets family managers manage playtime, age restrictions, monthly spending limits, game requests, communication, privacy settings, and activity reports from a phone.

The most important setting is Communication and User-Generated Content. When this is restricted, PlayStation disables text messages and voice chat with other players, sharing user-generated content created by your child, seeing another player’s user-generated content, and linking certain third-party services that include communication or user-generated content. Parents can also manage who can send friend requests, who can interact with a child through parties, games, and messages, who can see a child’s friends, who can see their online status and current game, and whether they can receive crossplay invitations.

Bark can also help families create safer limits around the PlayStation App. With Bark, you can block the PlayStation App and manage when your child can use it throughout the day.

So, should my kid download it?

We recommend the PlayStation App for teens aged 13+ only when parents have already set up a child account, age restrictions, spending limits, privacy settings, and communication controls. For younger kids, we do not recommend allowing the PlayStation App on their phone. If your child does use it, keep communication limited to real-life friends, review privacy settings regularly, and use the PlayStation Family app to manage their gaming experience.