iOS 17 allows student's to delete Safari History even with Content Filtering enabled

[Culvila]

We have noticed a strange bug with iPads running iOS 17. We use a content filtering Configuration Profile on all our student iPads to ensure that they are not able to delete their Safari history. The Clear History option within settings is still greyed out as well as the Delete option with in the History tab. However students are able to slide from right to left over their History to delete it now. Has anyone found another way to block deleting Safari history that would also block students from this method? 

[Bol]

I recall a similar bug appeared several major versions ago, although students found a sort of race condition between the back button press and item deletion in Safari.

It was fixed a few minor versions after, you could wait or perhaps check in at AppleSeed / report a bug if not already flagged.

You have to love the brute force nature of a persistent student and technology. Makes me grumpy though 

[bcrockett]

The workaround I would suggest is to have them use Chrome and prevent them from deleting Chrome history when signed in with a school account.

[Bol]

How, there is no managed app configuration policy for Chrome on iOS, only;

SavingBrowserHistoryDisabled
Unless you mean by using google managed accounts / admin which is far from the posters original question I would think!?

I could be wrong..

[bcrockett]

I read OP's question and jumped to what the end goal is. Which in my view is to use software to prevent browser history from being deleted on student iPads. 

I am not sure if that is possible on IOS with configuration profiles right now due to changes Apple has made to the IOS.

However, I think that is possible with the method I listed above. I know it works in a fleet I managed on macOS 14.1. 

We both need more context from OP to know if it would be more valuable to them to have their question answered or their end goal met. 

[Culvila]

Hi thanks for replying! The Chrome method may work but it would require us having to get 800 students to sign into the browser which may not be an easy task. The other concern is if the students would be able to just sign out of their school Google accounts, browse the web, then delete the History, and sign back in. The only reason we used Safari over Chrome prior was just to block deleting the history so we don't really care which browser we use. It is more about just reaching the end goal of blocking students from being able to delete their browsing history on their iPads. 

The ability to delete history in Safari was previously enforced by using a Configuration Profile with a Content Filter payload. It does still seem to block deleting history within Settings but students can swipe from right to left over the sites in the History tab within Safari to delete similar to how you would delete an email in the Mail app.

For now we may just need to wait for a patch to the Content Filter Configuration Profile that also know to block the swipe to delete function. 

[Bol]

Ah ok, no, it’s actually expected behaviour when deploying that payload in Safari. 

“The ability to clear the history is currently linked to Safari safe browsing (Web Content Filter) and at the moment this is an expected behaviour.”

As you noticed, it’s used to enforce these settings on macOS and also iOS but likely a bug if not working correctly now as I’ve reported in the past.

[Bol · Accepted solution]

I was able to replicate the issue in iPadOS version 7.0.3

This behaviour is no longer exhibited in version 7.1

Looks to have been silently fixed as no reports mentioned in beta or open radar I could see.

Happy days and no one has to be subjected to Chrome as a 'fix', nice.

[Culvila]

This is great news! Thank you for replying and taking a look!

[bcrockett]

Thats great! Hopefully, that level of stability is maintained for a long time on the App so that you do not run into this issue again.