To activate the screensaver in the GNOME3 desktop after a period of inactivity,
add or set idle-activation-enabled to true in
/etc/dconf/db/local.d/00-security-settings. For example:
[org/gnome/desktop/screensaver]
idle-activation-enabled=true
Once the setting has been added, add a lock to
/etc/dconf/db/local.d/locks/00-security-settings-lock to prevent user modification.
For example:
/org/gnome/desktop/screensaver/idle-activation-enabled
After the settings have been set, run dconf update.