How does monitoring work?

What is Bark's unique approach to monitoring?

Bark was created to offer a better, easier, and more effective way to keep children safe online.

Created in collaboration with child psychologists, youth advisors, digital media experts, and law enforcement professionals, Bark delivers a research-backed, kid-friendly solution for safeguarding families as technology changes how and where we communicate.

On the Bark Premium subscription plan, Bark scans your child’s connected accounts 24/7 and delivers alerts via text, email, and in-app when it detects possible issues such as:

  • Body image/eating-related issues
  • Bullying
  • Depression
  • Drug and alcohol-related content
  • Hate speech
  • Medically concerning content
  • Phishing
  • Predatory behavior
  • Risky app/site usage
  • Self-harm
  • Suicidal content
  • Sexual content
  • Violence
  • Weapons
  • and more

Bark uses advanced machine learning algorithms to recognize potential problems. Bark will even know to look for the latest popular acronyms, slang, and abbreviations used by children today! As you might imagine, this is a growing list and is consistently updated.

Our algorithms use machine learning to analyze conversational context and do not just look at keywords but at the broader conversation. The algorithms learn how kids use language rather than just spot-checking for a particular word. This means that overall context is a huge clue in finding risky content, but it does mean an occasional word will be missed. No tool is 100% accurate, but our algorithms are continuously learning and improving.

Due to the large volume of data the algorithms are analyzing, not just for keywords, but actual conversational context, the analysis is not instantaneous. However, because of this conversational context, it is more sensitive and much more likely to catch risky behavior.