SkieDoes DNS filtering see which websites students visit?
A filtering DNS service sees domain lookups, meaning the names of the sites a device asks to reach, so that it can allow or refuse them. It does not see the pages, the searches inside a site, the messages or the passwords. HTTPS keeps the content between the device and the site.
When a device wants to open a website, it first asks a DNS server to turn the name into an address. Skie locks the device to a filtering DNS, so every lookup goes to that provider, and the provider refuses lookups for categories the filter blocks. That works on school Wi-Fi, home Wi-Fi and mobile data alike, because the setting travels with the device.
This means the provider can see the domain names being asked for. It does not see what is on the page, what a student types into a form, what is sent in a chat or which video is playing. Those travel encrypted to the site, and DNS never carries them.
For a school this is a standard trade. Any web filter has to see something to filter it, and domain-level filtering is the lightest version of that. If an organisation has its own filter provider it can use it. The filter an organisation picks is a policy setting, set from the organisation down to the group.
Skie also reports a bypass of the filter, and the dashboard flags devices that fall back to the network's DNS because a network blocks the encrypted DNS port. That is about the health of the filter, not about reading what students do.
A practical tip: when you tell parents about filtering, say it is domain-level and name the categories you block. Then give the privacy policy of your chosen filter provider as the source for what they keep.