New Role: Child Account?

User Name
User Name
Community Member

I was wondering if you could perhaps add another role to 1Password for Families, which would be a Child Account.

As I envision it:

  • A Child Account would have read-only access to the shared vault. They would not be able to edit items.
  • A Child Account would not have a personal vault, but could be granted access to other vaults - such as one shared between them and the Family Organizers. This gives parents access to the vault, but allows siblings to keep their own vaults private from one another.
  • Alternatively, assigning the Child Account role would grant full access to their personal vault to the Family Organizers, appearing as a vault using the Child Account's name. This would of course have to be confirmed via email by the account before making the change to prevent unwarranted access by a Family Organizer to anyone's account. I prefer the first option, preventing the account from having a personal vault at all.

I'm running a trial of 1Password for Families and it's been great so far, but this is really what's holding me back from subscribing.

Ironically, the "Child Account" concept is actually something that I want to have more for my (elderly) parents than my children.
I'm trying to get them to use 1Password now that they have devices with TouchID to simplify that process, but they are accidentally adding items to their personal vaults rather than the vaults in their names, which means that I don't have access from my own devices when they ask me for help. Or they are editing items in the shared vault without meaning to.


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Comments

  • Hi @User Name! Thank you for the suggestion. That's a very interesting idea. :) I love the idea of having optional roles like Parents and Children. Optional because you could enable them — not every family has children. Let's discuss the specifics.

    A Child Account would not have a personal vault, but could be granted access to other vaults - such as one shared between them and the Family Organizers. This gives parents access to the vault, but allows siblings to keep their own vaults private from one another.

    This is possible right now with guests. You can add one of your children as a guest and share one vault with them. Guests do not have a Personal vault, and you can give them read-only permission on the vault they access by disabling "Allow Editing". I'd recommend doing this for now if you'd like this kind of setup for your family.

    Alternatively, assigning the Child Account role would grant full access to their personal vault to the Family Organizers, appearing as a vault using the Child Account's name. This would of course have to be confirmed via email by the account before making the change to prevent unwarranted access by a Family Organizer to anyone's account. I prefer the first option, preventing the account from having a personal vault at all.

    This is something we've discussed on the forum before, and we aren't looking to do it in the future. I'd suggest inviting your kids as guests to solve this. It is just what you need for the option above.

    I'm trying to get them to use 1Password now that they have devices with TouchID to simplify that process, but they are accidentally adding items to their personal vaults rather than the vaults in their names, which means that I don't have access from my own devices when they ask me for help. Or they are editing items in the shared vault without meaning to.

    Very interesting. The reason they're adding the items to their Personal vault is likely because that is the vault the app saves to automatically. Learn how to change the vault for saving so your kids can start putting items in the shared vault by default. Of course, adding them as a guest instead would make everything simpler

    Once again, I really appreciate you posting about this. We love hearing how people are using 1Password and what we can do to make things better for them. I'll forward your ideas to the team. :) Hope this helps! If you have some questions just let us know.

    ref: B5-2123

  • User Name
    User Name
    Community Member

    Thanks for the reply.

    I set up some tests and I think I have things mostly set up how I want now.

    Setting up a user as a guest account almost does what I want, since a guest cannot have a personal vault.
    Assigning a guest a vault in their name which I also have access to is just what I was looking for.

    Unfortunately the single vault limitation of guest accounts leaves them without access to the Shared Vault which is used for things like WiFi passwords.

    I also couldn't find anything written about it on the site, but doing a search suggested that you are limited to a maximum of only two guests at a time on a Families account too.


    Anyway, what I found is that you can delete the default "Shared" vault (though there is no way to restore it?) which I then replaced with a normal vault named "Shared" that I can manually assign to all family members but only grant them read-only access.

    Changing the default vault for saving, and removing their personal vault from the "All Vaults" view should hopefully prevent them from ever saving anything to their personal vault.


    I would still prefer that there was some way to disable the personal vault on a family member's account, while still being able to assign that account regular permissions though. (i.e. assigning the "Child Account" role)

    In my case, the reason for wanting this is simply a matter of convenience. Everyone wants to have their own "personal" vaults, but they are happy for me to have access, as it makes the process of me fixing any issues they may be having with a device or service much easier.

    However I can also see why a parent might want to set up accounts with this role to prevent their children hiding information from them in a secure vault.

  • Any guests added over the included number will be billed, but you can have an essentially unlimited number of them. How much they cost will depend on your plan but it is generally ~$1/mo/guest for Families accounts.

    Unfortunately the single vault limitation of guest accounts leaves them without access to the Shared Vault which is used for things like WiFi passwords.

    Yes, this is an intentional limitation. Guests can only have access to a maximum of 1 total vault. Part of the idea is to discourage folks from using guests as a replacement for family members (essentially to get around paying for additional family members).

    I suppose one way we might consider addressing that would be to have a total combined pool of family members and guests, instead of tracking them separately for billing purposes.

    However I can also see why a parent might want to set up accounts with this role to prevent their children hiding information from them in a secure vault.

    Yep, and that is not an uncommon position. But it is one we've had a number of conversations about. There are certainly multiple sides to that coin.

    Thanks for the feedback. Hopefully in the future we can come up with a solution that more closely matches your desired workflow. :)

    Ben

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