You cannot see the group chat. That is the whole problem.
The most common place a child is cyberbullied is an online group chat, where no parent, teacher or moderator is present. Guardii is built to detect the pattern inside that layer and tell you what is happening, while leaving your child the privacy that keeps them using their phone honestly.
backedIt is not that you are not looking. It is that it is not where you can look.
Every figure below is from the eSafety Commissioner, the Australian Government agency for online safety.
of cyberbullied children were last targeted in an online group chat, the most common setting of all. Only 8% were last targeted on someone else’s social media page.
eSafety Commissioner, 2024–25 (n=696 cyberbullied children)of parents whose child had been treated hurtfully online were aware it had happened, even though 69% of those children said they told them.
eSafety Commissioner, Mind the Gap (2021 fieldwork)of Australian children aged 10 to 17 have been told online to hurt or kill themselves, or that they should die.
eSafety Commissioner, 2024–25 (n=3,454)Patterns, not keywords
Sustained targeting
The same person coming back again and again. A third of cyberbullied children said their most recent experience was repeat behaviour by the same person.
Exclusion and pile-ons
Group chats that turn on one child, or a child quietly removed and talked about. Being deliberately left out of an online activity was the second most common form of cyberbullying children reported, and it is among the hardest to see.
Distress signals
Language indicating a child may be in crisis, including being told to hurt themselves, which 13% of cyberbullied children reported. Detection supports a parent noticing sooner. It is not a clinical or crisis service, and it will not catch everything.
Grooming and sextortion patterns
Escalation sequences, isolation attempts and coercion, detected by structure rather than by individual words.
Location awareness
Optional location sharing so you can see where your child is and be alerted when they arrive at or leave the places that matter, such as home and school. Your child can see exactly what is shared, and it is off unless you both turn it on.
Three steps, and your child keeps their privacy
Connect your child’s accounts
You and your child connect the accounts you agree to cover. Guardii is not spyware installed behind their back, and it works best when the child knows it is there.
Guardii watches for patterns
Detection looks at the shape of a conversation over time, including repetition, escalation and coordinated targeting, rather than scanning for banned words. Platform coverage depends on what each service permits, and we will tell you exactly what is covered before you sign up.
You get told what matters
When a pattern crosses the line, you get an alert describing what is happening and how serious it is. You do not get a feed of your child’s conversations.
Schools will have two school days to start acting. The clock starts when they find out.
By Term 1 2027 all Australian schools, government, Catholic and independent, will publish or link to an anti-bullying policy aligned to the National Framework or an equivalent framework in their state. It expects schools to make reasonable effort to initiate a response within two school days of becoming aware of the behaviour. A school cannot act on a group chat it has never seen, so how you report matters.
Questions parents ask
Does Guardii let me read my child’s messages?
No. Guardii reports patterns rather than transcripts. You are told that sustained targeting or a grooming pattern has been detected, how serious it is, and on which platform, so you can act. You do not get a running feed of your child’s private conversations, because a tool that removes a teenager’s privacy is one they will simply route around.
Why can I not just check my child’s phone?
Because most of it is gone before you look. Messages disappear, group chats scroll, and children delete what they are ashamed of. In eSafety’s 2024–25 survey the most common setting for a child’s most recent cyberbullying was an online group chat, named by 39%, against 8% who were last targeted on someone else’s social media page. In eSafety’s earlier Mind the Gap study, only 51% of parents whose child had been treated hurtfully online were aware it had happened.
My child will not talk to me about it. Is that normal?
It is very common, and it becomes more common with age. Among children who had been treated hurtfully online, eSafety found 64% of 14 to 17 year olds told a parent, compared with 75% of 8 to 10 year olds. Disclosure falls as children get older, which is part of why noticing it yourself gets harder over time.
What platforms does it cover?
Coverage depends on what each platform permits a safety tool to access, and it changes as those rules change, so we confirm the current list with you before you sign up rather than promising it here. For context, the services Australian children named most often for their most recent cyberbullying were Snapchat (21%), online video games (20%), Messenger Kids (13%), Instagram (8%), Facebook (7%) and Discord (6%). Note also that since 10 December 2025 several of these platforms are age-restricted in Australia for under-16s.
What should I do if my child is being bullied at school?
Report it to the school in writing. From Term 1 2027 Australian schools will publish or link to anti-bullying policies aligned to the National Framework, which expects schools to make reasonable effort to initiate a response within two school days of becoming aware of the behaviour. A written report starts that clock and creates a record. Guardii publishes a free letter template you can use.
If you need help now
If your child is in immediate danger, call 000. Kids Helpline is free and available to young people 24 hours a day on 1800 55 1800, and Lifeline is on 13 11 14. Seriously harmful online content targeting an Australian child can be reported to the eSafety Commissioner once it has first been reported to the platform it appeared on. Guardii is a detection tool and is not a crisis service.
Get early access to Guardii Family
Guardii Family is rolling out to Australian households. Leave your email and we will tell you when it opens, along with the practical guidance we publish for parents. No spam, and you can leave at any time.