How to verify if Data sharing participant is from the same Family

I am currently developing an iOS software that might share data between devices through iCloud Data. It is meant to be used between family members, as such, it seems a match in heaven with Family Sharing. But there doesn't seem to be any way to tell whether these two persons are from the same family, or at least that their devices seems to know each other. I don't want to ask for special permissions to the user such as contacts access, and I frown adding weirdo things such as sharing stuff in the Family Calendar only to test if they are the same.


I don't mind false positives either, but I wish to remove the idea of a hacker from a faraway land asking for permission, or a malicious Ex somewhere that tries to access what they shouldn't.


Any ideas?

Accepted Reply

Why not just let the user admit anyone the want into 'the family'?

One device asks another device (the lead device) if it can share and the other device responds yes or no.

That lead device can also remove anyone whenever it wants to (in case of divorce, termination or going away to college).

The two devices can communicate through:

MCSession (local Bluetooth/WiFi)

CKNotification

email

Game Center


You can use the public space in CloudKit for this app.

Replies

Why not just let the user admit anyone the want into 'the family'?

One device asks another device (the lead device) if it can share and the other device responds yes or no.

That lead device can also remove anyone whenever it wants to (in case of divorce, termination or going away to college).

The two devices can communicate through:

MCSession (local Bluetooth/WiFi)

CKNotification

email

Game Center


You can use the public space in CloudKit for this app.

My main concern with this is for the lesser technology-inclined families, where you got children that might be receiving my application first, and the parent realizing later they can interact with their children too. Once a parent is actually connected to the account, it can all go through that parent, but simply reading back that sentence makes you realize quickly that a first parent would have a tremendous decisional power in the usage of the application. The other possibility is to make all users having the same power, and not minding if they are children or not, which makes it a little bit awkward.


In other words, having a way to tell this is a limited account, this is a parental account ... but especially this is (probably) from the same Family Sharing team would mean less doubts. I can also add doubts for Apple's Family Sharing (as I heard there are some hacks being done) but at a point, I must trust something.