It stays home
No telemetry, no account, no cloud. Everything about your family stays on this computer; there is no BioKids server at all.
Free and open source · Version 2.0.0
A safe computer for your child. Your rules, and everything stays home.
BioKids is a free, open-source parental-control system for children aged 4–10, built on Debian 13. It brings screen-time limits, safe browsing, a live view of the screen on your phone, and an AI assistant that runs on the computer itself. No account, and nothing is sent to a cloud.
Open source: read every line of the code on GitHub →
- No account
- No telemetry
- Works offline
- Installs beside Windows
Why BioKids?
Made for parents, designed for children
The simpler a child's computer, the safer it is. BioKids turns a Debian computer into one a young child can use alone.
The child knows
Supervision is never hidden. The first start explains what the family can see, and when you watch the screen, the child sees it.
Time that cannot be fooled
Minutes are counted on the clock that runs since the computer started. Moving the system clock forward changes nothing.
Your phone is the remote
Give ten more minutes, lock the screen, answer a request: at home or away, over your own private network.
An assistant on the computer
Ask Me answers a child's questions with a language model that runs on the computer. No question goes to a cloud.
Made for ages 4–10
Big tiles, a ring showing the time left, buttons that read themselves aloud, and two friends: Zio and Sio.
Live view
Your child's screen, right now, on your phone
Press Watch live in the panel and see your child's screen at about one picture a second. At home or at work, it makes no difference.
- The child is told. While you watch, their screen says "👁 Mum can see your screen now". That sign cannot be turned off.
- Nothing is recorded. Each picture replaces the last in memory; leave the page and the watching ends.
- On the record. Every time watching starts, it is written in the audit log.
Ask Me · on-device AI
An assistant for curious kids that never goes to the cloud
The child types a question or asks it aloud, and gets a short answer for their age, in the language they asked in. The answer comes from a model running on the computer itself.
- Fully offline: the Gemma language model (llama.cpp), Whisper for speech, and an offline Wikipedia to check the answers.
- It refuses what a child should not ask, and you see what it refused. Ordinary questions are not kept.
- The microphone listens only while the button is held, for up to 15 seconds, and nothing is recorded.
- It is optional: off until you download it in the panel and turn it on for a child. It needs 7 GB of memory or more.
Time rules
Screen time: a few clear settings, the rest takes care of itself
Choose the daily minutes and the hours they can use the computer, for weekdays and weekends. BioKids counts, warns and enforces.
- Zio and Sio say it aloud when 10, 5 and 1 minutes are left.
- When time is up, lock the screen, log out or shut the computer down: your choice.
- Optional breaks, eye exercises, and time earned by learning.
- Holidays, birthdays: separate rules for special days.
History and insights
A year at a glance, any day at a tap
The Today screen shows each child's time left; History and Insights show where the time went.
- A year-long heatmap, the last 14 days as bars, and every day in detail: apps, sites opened, requests.
- Insights: the week's highlights, time by kind of app, and the hours of the day it was used.
- An optional weekly summary by email on Sunday evening, sent from your own mail server.
Safe browsing
The internet open, the worst of it closed
Adult, gambling, malware and scam sites are blocked by a filter on the computer, on the children's accounts only.
- About 291,000 harmful domains blocked; SafeSearch and YouTube's restricted mode enforced.
- Or, if you like, only the sites I choose.
- On a blocked site the child presses Ask a grown-up; the request reaches your phone and you answer with one tap.
- No proxy in the middle: BioKids never decrypts anyone's traffic.
The child's screen
No desktop, no settings: just big tiles
The child signs in by tapping their picture and lands in a launcher of the apps and sites you chose.
- Tiles that read themselves aloud for children who cannot read yet; two looks, for 4–7 and 8–10.
- Brightness at the bottom, volume at the top; open apps wait without starting over.
- Learning corners for English with Sio and Turkish reading, and a surprise card every day.
- GCompris, Tux Paint, Scratch, Chrome Music Lab and more than 30 ready apps and sites.
How it works
An ordinary day with BioKids
You set the rules once; then BioKids reminds, counts and tells you, so you do not have to.
A tap on their picture
The child signs in by tapping their own picture. No password, no desktop.
A little break
If you like, a 5-minute break every 40 minutes, with a few moves for the eyes.
Ask a grown-up
A blocked site? The child asks, the request reaches your phone, you press "Allow".
Ten minutes left
Zio says so aloud. Once a day the child can ask for a last round to finish what they are doing.
Evening chat
The panel suggests a few things to talk about from your child's day: new words, the riddle they solved.
Comparison
How it differs from cloud-based apps
Most parental controls make you open an account and send your child's day to a company's servers. BioKids never does.
| BioKids | Typical cloud app | |
|---|---|---|
| Account needed? | No | Yes |
| Where is the child's data? | Only on this computer | On the vendor's servers |
| Price | Free | Often a subscription |
| Open source? | Yes (MIT) | Usually not |
| Where does the AI run? | On the computer itself | In the cloud (if any) |
| Does the child know they are supervised? | Always | Depends on the app |
| When the internet is down | Every rule still works | Depends on the app |
Getting started
Install in three steps
A USB stick and half an hour are enough. Installing needs no internet either.
Download the ISO
Debian 13 with BioKids, about 3.3 GB. Free.
Download page →Write it to a USB stick
An 8 GB stick, with balenaEtcher or Rufus, in a few clicks.
USB guide →Install and set up
Start from the stick and install; at the first start a nine-step wizard welcomes you.
Install guide →
Promise
Principles that do not change
These are written into the project's constitution; no feature may break them.
Nothing leaves the device
No telemetry, no analytics, no cloud inference. Every outbound connection is listed in the open.
The child knows
No hidden screenshots, no keylogging. Supervision is always visible.
Fail safe, not silent
If protection breaks, the session locks and you are told. Never "continue unprotected".
Never locks you out
Anything that could lock you out is optional, reversible and documented.
Offline first
Every core feature works with the network cable unplugged.
A panel anyone understands
A setting that needs a paragraph of explanation lives behind "Advanced".
0data sent to a cloud
~291kharmful domains blocked
4 GBof RAM is enough
MITfree license
Open source
Every line of the code is open
All of BioKids (the background service, the parent panel, the child's launcher, the assistant and the ISO) is on GitHub under the MIT license. Read how it works for yourself, report a bug, or send a translation or a hardware report.
FAQ
What parents ask most
What is BioKids?
BioKids is a free, open-source parental-control system for children aged 4–10, built on Debian 13. It turns a computer into one a young child can use alone: the child signs in by tapping their picture and lands in a launcher of big tiles, with screen-time limits, safe browsing, a live view for the parent's phone and an AI assistant that runs on the computer itself. No account and no cloud.
Is BioKids free?
Yes. BioKids is completely free and open source under the MIT license. There is no subscription, no ads, no account and no "premium" edition. The source code is on GitHub.
Does it work without the internet?
Yes. Time limits, the launcher, the voices and the rules all work with the network cable unplugged; even installing from the ISO needs no internet. The network is needed only for updates, phone access, email notifications and the downloads you start (the assistant's model, the natural voice, the offline Wikipedia).
Will it erase Windows?
Not unless you ask it to. The installer offers to shrink Windows and install beside it; the computer then asks which one you want at every start. The disk is erased only if you choose to use the entire disk. Either way, back up your important files first. Step by step: install beside Windows.
Can my child get around BioKids?
BioKids is made for one curious 4–10-year-old alone at the computer. Changing the system clock does not add time; the child has no terminal, cannot install software, the filter runs on the children's accounts, and if something breaks the session locks. It does not stop someone who boots from a USB stick, or an adult helping the child. In the panel, Settings → Protection and the Help guide "Protecting the computer itself" explain how to protect the computer itself (for example with a BIOS password).
Does it record my child's screen?
No. BioKids never records a screen. The one exception is the live view you start in the panel: while it runs, a sign on the child's screen says so, no frame is written anywhere, and it ends when you leave the page.
