iOS14 and iPadOS14 WiFi - Private Address setting circumvents parental controls and possibly QOS
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I've noticed a new feature of iOS14 which is to enable a wifi private address. This gives the iphone and ipad a random and regularly renewing Mac address. This is done to make it harder to track devices when connected to wifi networks. Sounds good but it has it's implications.
Each time my son's ipad decides to use a new Mac address the Deco identifies this as a new device connecting to the network, and of course is no longer registered as one of his devices that has parental controls enabled (both website blocking and time limits).
I can see this is going to be a problem for many people and all router manufactures that use Mac address to restrict devices.
Thought everyone might want to have a think about this one.
P.S Additional thought : Presumably this will affect QOS as well where you have a prioritised device and the Mac address changes.
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Hello,
Thanks for reporting this to the community.
We actually are aware of this private address feature on the iOS 14 beta as well, which periodically changes the MAC address it uses with each Wi-Fi network, so it will be treated as a new device every time it connects.
The current workaround is disabling the "User Private Address" on your iPhone or iPad.
We will also investigate and see how to optimize the firmware of the TP-Link device, thanks a lot again for your advice.
Good day.
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Hello,
Thanks for reporting this to the community.
We actually are aware of this private address feature on the iOS 14 beta as well, which periodically changes the MAC address it uses with each Wi-Fi network, so it will be treated as a new device every time it connects.
The current workaround is disabling the "User Private Address" on your iPhone or iPad.
We will also investigate and see how to optimize the firmware of the TP-Link device, thanks a lot again for your advice.
Good day.
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A very useful way to address this would be to provide a way to have a default filtering category for new devices (before another is assigned). This would enable a secure by default, and extras by exemption setup which would mean that randomising the MAC would not bypass the filters (but might lose any additional access granted)
this is is a feature that has been requested before, so would have value outside of just solving this issue.
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Just bumping this post as it appears to have been missed by TP-Link
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bump
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Up
Disable Private adres is not an option as the device will turn back to it by default once you've resetted the device for any reason. Besides this, my kids are aware of this setting and can with this 'work-around' grant themselfs access to all kind of things I didn'st allowed im in the first place.
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I agree this needs sorting as a matter of urgency, otherwise I think I will have to return them and find something else that has proper controls
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@TP-Link_Deco Is there any update on this? The recommended workaround is silly because it defeats the purpose of the parental controls - which is the reason for which I purchased the system. Now when I try to disable my kids iphones' access to the internet during school nights - they can use this iphone feature to override the parental controls.
I was about to buy a second deco system from my brother until I realized that it has this flaw and i will return the system I just purchases because of this.
The easy solution was already proposed below - tp-link should allow the deco admin to set a default parental control profile for any unknown devices accessing the network.
Could you advise asap if will you be doing this?
Thank you.
X20 user.
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