Imagine trying to replicate the motion of the wax in a lava lamp by using modeling clay. It’s very difficult to make modeling clay move at all, let alone have it mimic motion. Holding someone accountable can feel a lot like that. With people jumping around between work computers and home computers, smartphones, and tablets, it can feel a little intimidating to try to figure out when and why a person may have stumbled online.
That’s why 2016 will be the most ambitious year yet for Covenant Eyes. We’re breaking new ground in research and technology, all to provide better service to our users.
Better Education
Battling pornography, whether as a parent, as an individual who is struggling, or as a leader equipping others, is challenging. This is why Covenant Eyes invests so much in providing you educational articles, blog posts, e-books and videos. In 2015, we released an updated version of Porn and Your Husband, and two new e-books, More than Single: Finding Purpose Beyond Porn, and Fight Porn in Your Church.
Better Reporting
Covenant Eyes uses proprietary techniques to classify website visit types such as “visited” or “secondary.” However, sometimes we don’t know how to classify something. Through improved techniques, we found a way to classify more websites than ever before, making your reports cleaner and easier to understand.
If you are a Covenant Eyes Accountability Partner, you are interested in the sites your partner visits, but you likely want to know what led them to that site, what they did there and what happened afterwards. We’re almost ready to add Incident Reports to the Accountability Report to show you what happened before Highly Mature content was accessed. Was the user searching for inappropriate content, or did they stumble on it accidentally? This information should help create better accountability conversations about intention as well as help identify common triggers that can be avoided in the future.
One of the biggest criticisms we’ve received for our accountability app for iPhone is that we don’t provide any accountability or filtering for the Safari browser. We’ve been working on a new, patent-pending way to expand our service to provide better coverage across your entire device, including Safari.
Better Service
Covenant Eyes just opened a second location here in Owosso, MI. More than 100 people attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony, including media, local elected officials and leaders, and Covenant Eyes staff members. The location will house nearly 40 customer service representatives to provide you with shorter wait times and even more personalized service. We plan to use this site to work through some of the kinks in operating multiple locations so we can open offices across the country and possibly internationally.
Lastly, we have heard countless requests for improved reporting of photos and videos. Using a new process built off state-of-the-art technology, we are thrilled to announce that we have developed a new, patent-pending image recognition software. Short-term, this means better reporting of inappropriate images…and it has some long-term implications for video as well.
Want to see this in action? There is a demo that shows some of the capabilities of this new system in the video above. The moment of the kiss is flagged as possibly inappropriate (represented by the dip downward). Compare that to the analysis of a pornographic video, where the line stays at the bottom of the graph (“pornographic content”) until the very end, which is presumably when the clothing goes back on. Remember, this isn’t necessarily how it will appear on your Accountability Report…but it’s exciting, and we wanted you to share our excitement.
We are still researching this technology, and are in the process of deciding how to report it and integrate it into our software and apps, but we’re getting close. Look for an announcement with more details this summer.
We’re excited to offer you these exciting updates, and we’ve got even more planned. Leave us a comment to tell us what features you’re most excited about or what you’d like us to pursue.
Thank tou for continuing to stay current and keep up with technology! God bless you guys and what you are trying to accomplish!
I am really looking forward to the better integration of covenant eyes with the iPhone. I would like to se it work more flawlessly like the android phones!
Very excited to hear about the full iPhone coverage. Mobile use has been such challenge, the one real remaining battle. My phone is entirely locked down because of it – I’m hopeful that this will give me the freedom to use my iPhone freely. Thanks!
The one improvement I would like to see is the Covenant Eyes iPhone app to be a 4+ rating. Other safe browsers like NetNanny and Mobicip are able to achieve this. It would be a great help so I can age restrict apps my kids use. As it is now, I have to open restrictions to 17+ apps due to the Covenant Eyes rating.
This is some amazing technology for sure. We have to stay up on the latest tools to combat those that are doing the same thing to find those holes to do the sneak attacks. Mainly though, there are many of us that have tried a variety of different things to get around those filters in our weak moments. I am very impressed to see the extra details that would show what led up to an incident. This may also aid in researching this type of addiction and give new insights in combating this prevailing problem in our present society.
Great job guys, God bless!!
How about safari on ipads ,
Hello Colin
With our newest update, mentioned in the article above, we will be able to extend our protection to Safari on all iOS devices. We thank you for your patience and we hope to be able to release this update as soon as possible!
Best regards,
Annelise
Has covenant eyes been able to work on monitoring content on apps like YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google, Twitter…..essentially any link to a browser in app?
Hi, Niko – the short answer is YES, and we hope to have a solution in place very soon. This solution will provide a safe browsing “lock” for these hidden browsers that you mention, and there are many.
Peace, Chris
Covenant Eyes
Are able to monetor play books on tablet ,
Your video was restricted for me because my partner has certain youtube content blocked with her secret password. I am sure it was good and a welcome change.
I’m praying you have all this capability with the Samsung android phones too.
I am still waiting for android version as well. I’m looking at canceling as my android is all I really use and obviously the service is not helping. I would think mobile security would be a high priority as so many people do everything on their phones now.
Hello Liz,
Thank you for your prayers, they are much appreciated! Currently on the Android phones we do have extended accountability where we can monitor apps like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Search and many more. What appears to be left out of the article, on accident I believe, is that our developers are also working on filtering for Android. I do not have a release date yet, but you will definitely receive a notification once it becomes available. We appreciate your patience and we hope to have Android filtering available as soon as possible!
Best regards,
Annelise
I’m excited to hear about the new improvements. One thing that is majorly important is solving the google/youtube issue. This is an absolute deal breaker for me. It’s a wonderful filter and monitor, but I can access and youtube completely unrestricted and unmonitored! As your customer serivce people can testify, I’ve blocked all the suggested domains and it hasn’t helped. I’m thankful that my vimeo blocks have worked, but I know they haven’t work for a friend of mine who is also using CE. His youtube is blocked, but not his vimeo! Both of these sites are filled with explicit pornographic material. In my mind, there’s nothing that could be more important to improve on than this since your integrity as a filtering and accountability company depends on it. I’m looking forward!
YouTube is NOT filled with pornography…do you know how quick they take it down? Same with Vimeo, They are pretty hardcore on eliminating porn from their sites.