A tablet that four people unlock with the same PIN feels convenient for about a week. Then a game bills 4,200 taka in micro-transactions, a school project disappears from the home screen, and nobody can work out which of the four lost sessions did it — because they were never separate sessions at all.
The real cost of a shared account is not the PIN. It is that every app on that account inherits the same identity: one purchase history, one saved card, one set of autofilled addresses, one browser profile carrying everybody’s history, and one cloud drive where a child’s homework sits beside a bank statement. Autofill is what turns a careless tap into a payment, and a shared profile is what makes the payment impossible to trace.
Separate profiles fix three things at once. Each person keeps their own photos and documents, one person can be locked out without changing everyone else’s password, and per-person screen time becomes possible at all.
Add the profiles properly on each platform
Windows 11: open Settings > Accounts > Family & other users > Add account. The adult keeps the administrator role; everyone else gets a Standard account. Add children through account.microsoft.com/family rather than as a local account, because Family Safety limits only bind to a Microsoft child account, not a local one.
Android tablets: Settings > System > Multiple users > Add user. Each profile gets its own Google account, home screen and app data, and installs are not shared. The catch is real: background sync, alarms and notifications for a profile pause while it is not active, so never do this on the phone that holds someone’s 6 a.m. alarm. On Samsung hardware the path is Settings > Accounts and backup > Users.
iPad: Apple only offers multi-user mode on Shared iPad hardware managed by a school or business, so an ordinary iPad cannot do profiles. Use Screen Time plus Guided Access instead.
Chromebook: Settings > People > Manage other people, enable “Restrict sign-in to the following users”, and add the child as a supervised account through Family Link.
Windows 11 Home also lacks kiosk mode. Assigned access under Settings > Accounts > Other users > Set up assigned access is Pro, Enterprise and Education only, so on a Home machine use a Standard account with a locked-down browser instead.
Put the limits where money changes hands
Install approval is the setting that prevents most household arguments. In the Play Store it lives inside Family Link under the child’s profile: turn on approval for every download, not just paid ones. On iOS, Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > iTunes & App Store Purchases lets you set Installing Apps and In-app Purchases to “Don’t Allow”.
Then remove the stored card from the shared profile altogether and leave a gift-card balance instead. A saved card behind a four-digit PIN is one overheard number away from a purchase, and refunds for accidental purchases are slow.
Streaming services need the same treatment: a profile lock PIN on Netflix, a parental PIN on Prime Video, and separate viewing profiles rather than a single queue.
Keep banking and passwords off the shared profile
Bank apps do not belong on a device that gets handed around. If one has to be there, give it its own app-level PIN, refuse “remember this device”, and never enable SMS previews on the lock screen. The same logic applies to two-factor codes: each adult’s authenticator should live on their own phone, not on the kitchen tablet everyone can pick up.
For passwords, a family plan with separate vaults is the whole point. Bitwarden Families runs about $40 a year for six users; 1Password Families is $4.99 a month for five. A single shared vault with one master password recreates the problem you just solved.
Guests get the guest network, not the family one — the setup in the ten-minute guest Wi-Fi guide keeps visitor devices off the drives and printers the household actually shares. For the phones that leave the house, the settings in Android theft protection are worth enabling on each person’s own device.
Lock the hardware, not just the apps
Set the screen timeout to one minute on a tablet and five on a laptop, then make the lock real. On Windows, Settings > Accounts > Sign-in options has “If you’ve been away, when should Windows require you to sign in again?” — set it to “When PC wakes up from sleep”. Turn off “Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting up after an update”.
Biometrics stay per account: each person enrols their own fingerprint or face; templates never transfer between profiles. For a young child, Guided Access on iPad (Settings > Accessibility > Guided Access) pins one app to the screen and blocks the home button until you triple-click and enter the passcode. Microsoft and Google both document the family controls at Microsoft Family Safety and Google For Families Help.
Before the device is sold or handed down
Order matters here. On Android, remove the Google account first (Settings > Passwords & accounts), then erase the device — skip that step and Factory Reset Protection locks the next owner out and they will be back at your door. On Windows, sign out of OneDrive and Office, remove the account, then use Settings > System > Recovery > Reset this PC > Remove everything and choose “Clean data” if work files ever lived on the drive. On iPad, turn off Find My before erasing, or activation lock keeps the tablet tied to your Apple ID for good.