Elderly Digital Safety & Scam Protection Platform

Published on 07/17/2025Marketing Opportunities

This post tackles a deeply emotional and critical issue: safeguarding elderly family members from online scams, especially on social media. The current solutions like PiHole, router settings, app store PINs, and OS digital wellbeing features are often fragmented, too technical for caregivers, or easily bypassed, particularly when it comes to mobile data usage. There's a clear need for a user-friendly, comprehensive, and robust solution that is hard for the elderly user to disable.

Product Form: A cross-platform (desktop and mobile) SaaS application with a centralized caregiver dashboard. The core functionality would involve system-level content filtering and app usage management that is tough for the elderly user to disable. This could be achieved through a custom VPN profile that routes all traffic through a filtered server, leveraging Mobile Device Management (MDM) capabilities for deeper system control, or by implementing a custom endpoint protection agent. Key features would include blocking specific apps (e.g., Facebook, certain messaging apps, gambling apps), whitelisting or blacklisting websites, setting time limits, and proactive alerts for suspicious online activity (e.g., new unknown contacts, unusual financial requests, attempts to disable protection). Additionally, AI-powered scam pattern detection could be a valuable feature. The setup process for the caregiver must be intuitive, and the solution must work seamlessly across Wi-Fi and mobile data connections. A critical differentiator is its robustness against tampering by the elderly user.

Expected Revenue: Medium to high. This product serves a niche within the consumer parental control and digital safety market, specifically targeting caregivers of tech-vulnerable elderly. The willingness to pay would be high due to the emotional distress and significant potential financial losses associated with online scams. Pricing would likely be a monthly subscription per family or per monitored device. Given the growing elderly population and the increasing sophistication of online scams, the market for such a dedicated, easy-to-use, and tamper-proof solution is substantial. A price point of $20-$40 per month per family could attract a significant user base, leading to annual recurring revenue in the mid to high millions, provided strong marketing to caregiver communities, senior advocacy groups, and a relentless focus on user-friendliness and reliability.

Origin Reddit Post

r/techsupport

Options to block Facebook on elderly father's devices?

Posted by u/Difficult_Ad336107/17/2025
Hi all. My elderly father spends all his time on Facebook, looking for and accepting requests from random 'women'. I say 'women' because they are very clearly fake accounts with AI generated

Top Comments

u/mechrisme
You could prevent him from downloading the app from the app store with a PIN number but that's for Android, not sure how Apple is but I guess he could still use the browser if that didn't wor
u/No_Newt_8293
Omg my mother does the same thing,😂 what is wrong with them and now she has been talking to the weirdo, we keep telling her they are scammers but she doesn't listen
u/sterlingphoenix
PiHole is amazing but probably impractical for this. A lot of ISP-provided routers don't allow you to change anything. Furthermore, even if they do, this is all lost if his father uses 5G/LTE
u/ScarletSpider8
Remove it and tell him that they restricted it to people under 50.
u/the-crotch
OP's father is an adult. Unless OP has permission or power of attorney, it's potentially a crime to screw with his equipment like this.
u/Doomkauf
If he's so tech-illiterate that he's regularly falling for obvious scams, then it seems pretty doubtful to me that he'll know that Facebook has been blocked. He'll know it won't load for him
u/steakanabake
my grandma got scammed over the phone she refused to use the internet when my mom and i sat her down to talk about it she refused to listen to reason on it she was so accustomed to answering
u/Odd-Employer-5529
go to settings and see if there is a thing call digital wellbeing. If there is you can set timer or ap usage. Set it for1 min, and if asked, Facebook has been having a lot of issues. ( chec
u/portezbie
Well some of us love our grandpas
u/Der_Arsch
I would try Blokada and a Social Media Blocklist, also make the VPN Profile mandatory in Android [https://community.blokada.org/t/blokada-configuration-to-block-social-media-and-ads/818](http
u/Elmer_Whip
adguard dns allows you to block custom domains. pihole is great but requires a single board computer or a virtual machine. with adguard, you create an account then just point his devices at t
u/Odd-Employer-5529
go to settings and see if there is a thing call digital wellbeing. If there is you can set timer or ap usage. Set it for1 min, and if asked, Facebook has been having a lot of issues. ( chec
u/Scragglymonk
Had wondered why the fake FR to me showed mostly really old men, some were clearly men as xxxx had updated HIS profile photo and often from a random celeb.... Worth looking at taking contro
u/Grathmaul
No, I'm saying it's idiotic to take away something his parent enjoys and expect that to end well. The guy is probably just lonely and if they really cared about him they would spend time wit
u/simagus
I think that would require editing the "Hosts" file, but that's only possible on rooted Android devices. You could block it on some routers if he uses wi-fi by blocking all the associated m
u/VisualRope2945
Let me know your father's account. I will teach him another lesson of a romance scam. So you can force him to leave facebook for good. LOL
u/coagulandia
It's loneliness.
u/iszoloscope
Indeed and not funny.
u/noideawhatimdoing444
Oh this is a fun one and super easy. What were gonna do is buy a [raspberry pi](https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/). The 4b model listed will work fine. Need a coole
u/steakanabake
sorry i threw up again....
u/VisualRope2945
Let me know your father's account. I will teach him another lesson of a romance scam. So you can force him to leave facebook for good. LOL
u/jcas01
Custom dns is the way
u/Grathmaul
It's not your business, or your responsibility. What do you think will happen when he can't get his jollies from talking to fake women on the Internet? I mean you're really gonna have probl
u/portezbie
I just said you had to look at a picture of it, not sure what you're doing with it that's making you throw up ...
u/Some-Challenge8285
Use a custom DNS such as NextDNS, you can use this to block adverts, so you can tell him you are installing an adblocker, and because it can be configured remotely, you can then wait a week o
u/sterlingphoenix
I use my own wifi 6 (well 6e now) router mostly because I need a mesh network and hell if I'm letting comcast run mine.
u/sterlingphoenix
PiHole is amazing but probably impractical for this. A lot of ISP-provided routers don't allow you to change anything. Furthermore, even if they do, this is all lost if his father uses 5G/LTE
u/alinroc
> see if there is a thing call digital wellbeing. This is called Screen Time on Apple devices.
u/steakanabake
but you need root to edit the host file as that lives in root space and not something that the normal android account can access.
u/ErnestoGrimes
maybe you can introduce her to op's dad
u/simagus
This is correct. Whoever thought they were correcting me was not.
u/portezbie
Haha
u/mechrisme
You could prevent him from downloading the app from the app store with a PIN number but that's for Android, not sure how Apple is but I guess he could still use the browser if that didn't wor
u/steakanabake
sorry i just threw up in my mouth a little, but go on.
u/dude_named_will
Have you tried talking to him?
u/embarassingaltaccoun
Blocking facebook without him knowing is arguably morally wrong, maybe illegal, and probably will just lead to him buying new devices or - more worryingly - getting caught up in tech support
u/steakanabake
i just run it as a bridge/ap and let pihole do the lifting.
u/aquatic-dreams
Not true, you don't need root you can use ADB.
u/noideawhatimdoing444
Oh this is a fun one and super easy. What were gonna do is buy a [raspberry pi](https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/). The 4b model listed will work fine. Need a coole
u/goalump
I've got a question - how do you block Facebook 'without him knowing'? Surely as soon as he can't get on Facebook he will 'know'? I'm confused...
u/simagus
Without root? Nice! I am quite familiar with Android Debug Bridge. I wasn't aware it let you edit system folders without root. So cool!
u/sterlingphoenix
This is what I'm saying. I have an xfiniti router (hopefully not for a lot longer) and it won't let you d much, but I have my own wifi router attached to that and all traffic in the house goe
u/Ivy1974
Well on a computer I know a trick that worked because one single employee spent most of her time on FB than doing her job. Simple entry in the host file. But curious if there is a simple solu
u/DivasDayOff
Sounds like he is lonely and just wants some romance and affection in his life. Perhaps he will settle for fake over nothing at all. A decent talk about not being scammed again is what's nee
u/steakanabake
yes just want i want to see my grandpas old dick.
u/portezbie
Romance scam him yourself, get him to send a dick pic, then use the pic to blackmail him into never using Facebook again.
u/Slow-Title7424
Cool idea, just… maybe not the stealthiest route for a non-techie trying to block Facebook from their dad
u/ScarletSpider8
Remove it and tell him that they restricted it to people under 50.
u/DivineDart
Create a fake woman account and take his money.
u/steakanabake
hooking in a pi hole to my verizon router can be done but its not very fun to do so at all, it does not like giving up control of DNS functions and DHCP.
u/Sharp-Watercress-279
Are you telling OP to not do anything at all? Just sit back and watch his parent lose everything?
u/steakanabake
because most people wont, i just treat hostile equipment like that as a bridge and shut down every service its possible of and farm it out, only reason i still attempt to use mine is cause a
u/Big-Try-2735
From the non-tech perspective: Make sure he has a freeze set up with the credit bureaus. Go see the manager of the bank branch he uses. Explain that you have a legit fear that he is getti
u/cieje
if you have access to the router, you could block the domain. depending on the router, you can probably set a custom denial page.

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