Recaptcha.net consuming my child's Screen Time daily

My previous post was removed, I don't know why.

This issue has been fixed in the latest version of the recaptcha SDK. As app developers adopt it, this usage will disappear from screentime. This was due to a change in iOS 26 that counted screentime from embedded browsers differently. (Source: I lead the team that built the SDK).

Thanks!

I think this answer is correct. I thought it was malware, until I set the limit to 1 minute, but yesterday I checked it still took up a lot of screen time. After reading this and checking it myself, it turns out it was from the games I was playing. Clash Royale took 18 minutes and Clash of Clans took 9 minutes, and that's right, so the total for recaptcha.net is 27 minutes. But why did this only appear with the iOS 26 update?

[Edited by Moderator]

Hey, thanks for reporting this. I work on reCAPTCHA at Google. Apple made a change in ios26 wrt screentime and embedded browsers and we are actively looking into how to address this. Stay tuned and thanks again.

You can restrict individual apps in the Screen Time settings. I set recaptcha.net to 2 minutes and that took care of it.

Could you change the all app limit to everything but websites? If he has no web browser then that could solve the problem. You would have to delete the All Apps one you have and make a new one with every app on his phone or the ones you want to limit.

You may have to reach out to the app developers to get this resolved.

For Clash of Clans, Clash Royale and Brawl Stars: https://support.supercell.com/en/

Apps can integrate a captcha, and the name of the one referenced is seemingly associated with Google seeking to detect suspicious traffic from apps. As a guess, it is probably associated with tracking and with ads in games.

Is it still showing up when your kids play brawl stars? If so does recaptcha.net match the time your kids play brawl stars? I believe its due to the IOS update as i tested it on my friends phone and my ipad and recaptcha.net showed up when i played a supercell game but i contacted supercell and they said it was IP related so im confused.

Yeah recaptcha coincides with supercell games, like my brothers brawl stars, my clash Royale and clash of clans

This makes sense I only play clash Royale and racaptcha is only 6 minutes above its screen time. Online I found it’s to check for bots or real users

this is an ios 26 bug or feature. Initially, I thought its some sort of malware, but after carefully reviewing the data, the Screen Time usage coincides precisely with my clash of clans playtime. So it is either a system bug, or the game may be utilizing a mechanism like reCAPTCHA for verification , afaik there is no solution to this issue

I have sent an email to parents@supercell.com. Perhaps you can send too?

I got a few responses of which this is the latest:

Supercell

October 10, 2025, 10:32 +0200

Hi there,

Thank you for your message.

Sorry to hear that you’ve been experiencing problems. We've now flagged this issue for follow-up with the development team.

Meanwhile, remember to check the Google Play Store (Android) or AppStore (iOS). This way you can make sure you’ve installed any recent, important updates.

Hope this helps!

Some mod deleted my post, as if I were giving any feedback or request for Apple, which I didn't.

Here it comes again - reworded:

Hi all!

I got troubles with my daughter’s iphone too on iOS 26. It’s however due to doubleclick domains, which oh irony are also owned by Google.

People wrote that Apple should fix this ScreenTime 'bug', but note that apart from eating screen time, those processes popping up in the Screentime report also consume battery. These are designed to do things we don’t ask for nor understand. These are ‘needed’ - not for our sake - but for Google's. It's good that we now know how they are messing with us and with our phones.

So I for one am happy that Apple does the effort to treat those differently, and given the troubles we now see, some shady practices are exposed.

Someone wrote “I thought it was malware” and assumed that it isn’t because it appeared to be Google. Well, what is the actual difference here anyway? Clearly, Google is now scrambling (“release a fix for this issue”) to hide its activities in a cat and mouse game with Apple.

We’re mostly dealing with children when it comes to specifically Screentime - how on earth is Google turning up to be the ghost that is hiding under all of this??

OlliFlamme wrote:

Some mod deleted my post, as if I were giving any feedback or request for Apple, which I didn't.

Here it comes again - reworded:

Hi all!

I got troubles with my daughter’s iphone too on iOS 26. It’s however due to doubleclick domains, which oh irony are also owned by Google.

People wrote that Apple should fix this ScreenTime 'bug', but note that apart from eating screen time, those processes popping up in the Screentime report also consume battery. These are designed to do things we don’t ask for nor understand. These are ‘needed’ - not for our sake - but for Google's. It's good that we now know how they are messing with us and with our phones.

So I for one am happy that Apple does the effort to treat those differently, and given the troubles we now see, some shady practices are exposed.

Someone wrote “I thought it was malware” and assumed that it isn’t because it appeared to be Google. Well, what is the actual difference here anyway? Clearly, Google is now scrambling (“release a fix for this issue”) to hide its activities in a cat and mouse game with Apple.

We’re mostly dealing with children when it comes to specifically Screentime - how on earth is Google turning up to be the ghost that is hiding under all of this??

What, exactly, is your question that we, your fellow users, can help you with?

Do you play any supercell games like Clash Royal?

This is my brand new 17 Pro Max Tuesday is the day I got it and you can see my screen time is up to 22 to 24 hours a day. If you look at the first picture, you’ll see that it’s recording me at 34 hours of screen time, that doesn’t even make sense.

[Edited by Moderator]