MR clearing up this mess. Also maybe police should be stopping real crimes and not commenting on software they clearly have never even used themselves.
I shut it off on mine because I have a personal phone and a work phone (both apple) and anytime I have the two near each other it goes off with that insanely annoying bell.
As for the child protection issue, I thought Content and Privacy restrictions allowed parents to block adding new contacts on their kids phones or does this override it? That to me is the simplest solution.