Where RedLens came from, why the existing tools miss the point, and how it works in practice.
Kirk spent thirty years building systems for banks, startups and global enterprises: Maersk, Monitise and Valley National Bank. His career has been about making complex information make sense. When he turned that instinct on his own family, he found a question he couldn't answer as a parent: what is his son actually watching online?
Not out of suspicion: just the things any curious parent wants to know. What interests are developing? What topics keep coming up? What's worth talking about?
So he built something to find out. A personal experiment - a regular report on his son's viewing history - quickly became something bigger. When vaping content kept appearing, Kirk used it as the starting point for a conversation. The same reports showed what his son was genuinely curious about: supercars, engineering, history. Those became things to do together. That conversation, and those activities, changed things.
"Understanding what your child is watching gives you the context for conversations that actually land."
RedLens was built from that insight. Not restriction. Not surveillance. Understanding, and what it makes possible.
Most tools in this space focus on restriction: what to block, what to limit, what to alert on. There is a place for those tools, and many families use them well. RedLens is not designed to replace them. It is designed to add something different: context.
When a parent knows what their child has been watching, in specific terms and not just "a lot of screen time", they can have a different kind of conversation. One that starts from curiosity rather than suspicion. One that their child is more likely to engage with. One that might actually change something.
RedLens is built on the belief that understanding is more powerful than restriction, and that most parents, given the right context, know exactly what to do with it.
RedLens is set up with both parent and child present. We do not support covert monitoring. Children know their family is using the tool together.
Every action in RedLens is a suggestion, a conversation, or a real-world activity, never a hard block. We guide, we do not restrict.
Built on your family's own activity data: you authorise it, you control it. RedLens uses only official data portability channels, and we never sell data to third parties.
RedLens reads and analyses content. It does not modify, manipulate, or write back to any social media platform on your behalf.
Three capabilities. Each one builds on the last. Together they turn your family's viewing history into understanding, conversation, and connection.
RedLens analyses your child's social media viewing history across 20 harm dimensions, from vaping and violence to body image, financial manipulation, and radicalisation. Each dimension is scored per video, per child profile, against thresholds that parents set themselves.
Not an alert that something happened. A clear, ongoing picture of what your child has been watching, and where the patterns are developing.
When a pattern crosses your threshold, RedLens generates conversation guides anchored to what the child actually watched this week. Not generic advice about vaping, but the specific prompt that fits the specific moment.
The goal is never accusation. It's the kind of natural, informed conversation that only becomes possible when you know what's actually going on in your child's digital world.
Based on what your child watches, RedLens suggests real-world activities matched to their genuine interests: local events, things to build at home, things to watch together.
Not screen time limits. Not a list of alternatives. A specific suggestion, this week, that takes what they love about being online and turns it into something that happens in the world.