Web content filtering on iOS devices in Systems Manager
Adult content filtering can be configured in Systems Manager for devices running iOS 7 or greater, that have been supervised using Apple Configurator or the Device Enrollment Program. This allows devices with the restriction enabled to automatically filter adult content in any browser sessions, on any network, without the need for a 3rd party content filter. While not as powerful as a full-featured content filter, it can provide a basic level of filtering at the device level, based on page content or URL.
To enable content filtering for supervised Systems Manager devices:
- Navigate to Systems Manager > Settings.
- Select the Profile the restriction should be enabled for.
- Click the Add Settings option and select the iOS Web Content Filter payload
- Select the desired content filter behavior:
Auto-filter: Web content automatically blocked based on filters pre-defined by Apple.
Allow list bookmarks: Only allow access to specific websites/URLs.
If using Auto-filter, additional URLs can be blocked or allowed as desired. Use the Permitted URLs box to allow specific URLs, and the Block list URLs box to block specific URLs. URLs entered will be used to match on the beginning of the page being accessed. If specified in the URL, http and https are not interchangeable. However, if not included, matching will be done against both.
Examples:
example.com as the URL would match for https://example.com/page1 and http://example.com/page2, but not http://www.example.com/page1
http://example.com as the URL would match for http://example.com/page1 and http://example.com/page2, but not https://example.com/page1 or http://www.example.com/page1
When using Allow list bookmarks, only the URLs entered will be allowed. They will also appear in Safari under Bookmarks > Allowed Sites. If the site in the bookmark redirects to another site, or the user attempts to navigate to a URL that does not match, the content will be blocked.
