"Allow list" commands require cheats enabled?

This seems to be documented here, but WHY?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/minecraft/creator/commands/commands/allowlist?view=minecraft-bedrock-stable

 

I'm literally trying to help a teacher run his minecraft server by managing their allow list, but without needing to grant external access to the server via ftp/ssh.  The children specifically want to play for achievements.

any time I try a /allowlist command it just says Cheats must be enabled.  (How is that a cheat?)