Tracking your kids with a GPS in their cellphone...

[hntngirl]

http://www.komotv.com/stories/29394.htm

January 21, 2004

By Molly Shen

KING COUNTY - Parents, here's a way to know where your teenager is, anytime.

Cell phones equipped with GPS tracking devices let you keep tabs on your teen.

When 16-year old Tanya Dunayvitser is at the mall, her mom knows.

"This blue dot shows me exactly where she is," says Larisa Dunayvitser, monitoring a map on the website telenav.net from home. "Exactly the time. Exactly location. Exactly."

Larisa Dunayvitser is tracking her daughter with a global positioning system embedded in Tanya's cell phone.

Tanya's initial reaction?

"I was not very happy at all," she laughs. "I could not get my privacy. She knew where I was going, everywhere. I don't like that very much."

But Tanya says she understands now.

"My mother explained everything to me and why she wanted it, and I guess I agreed with her," Tanya says. "It makes sense. I understand she wants me to be safe. It's fine."

The GPS cell phone tracking is a joint venture with Nextel and Telenav.

Nextel's Area Manager for Internet and Wireless Services is Andre Cunningham.

"What we've found is that in the last year and a half that we've had this, it's exploded on us," he says. "Here in the Puget Sound we've added well over a thousand customers in that year and a half time frame."

Most new customers are businesses tracking where workers are driving, even how fast they're going.

For now, families are just catching on to the technology.

And Tanya - who feels she's lost a little privacy - might get something else in return.

With renewed peace of mind, her mother says, "Maybe I will let her stay out longer now. I feel great. She's safe. I know where she is."
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Okay, I can think of several ways right off the top of my head that a kid can get around this and still fool the parents into thinking they know his/her whereabouts. But is this a good idea or not? Thoughts?

[Jorgy]

Okay, I can think of several ways right off the top of my head that a kid can get around this and still fool the parents into thinking they know his/her whereabouts. But is this a good idea or not? Thoughts?

I certainly don't have a problem with it. I think it's a parents perogative if they want to. I think it falls under, you can never be too safe. On the other hand, I wouldn't like to be a employee who was being tracked by my boss. But as someone who has employees, where do I sign up for these?

[bigbulls]

So now we are tracking our kids with GPS.[X(] Let kids be kids. They are going to get into trouble, be at the wrong place at the wrong time, do stupid things, hang out with the wrong people, get hurt, experiment with stuff they probably shouldn't etc...etc... but the more they feel that you do not trust them the stronger their urge to do all of those stupid things. Make rules that they have to follow and stick to them and impose proper punishment when they break the rules. They learn absolutly nothing about life having their parents watching their every move like some Marine outfit in the Middle East.

This is just another way for parents to not be real parents.

This world is getting suckier and suckier every day.

I really hate to think what my grand kids will have to put up with when they are teenagers.

[Coastie]

Kids can still be kids, it's just easier to keep track of where they are doing it. The time was (last week) if you needed to know where your kid was, it took a number of phone calls and/or a frantic drive around the block/town or whatever to locate them. Times have changed from 50 years ago when I was a kid and about the worst thing that would have happened is I drowned or broke my neck or something.
I do wonder just how accurate this GPS receiver in a cell phone is though, I just bought a new Garmin GPS 12XL and it doesn't work worth a hoot inside the house. How much better can one of these units be that are built into a cell phone? If you are in a building or underground it isn't going to do much good.
I also wonder how many of these parents will buy the appropriate mapping software to go along with the GPS so they can actually find where that location is.
There was a time, not that long ago, when a childs privacy was not an issue, it was the old I'm your parent, that's why, thing and no argument was expected or allowed.

[1eyedfish]

But you dont need to have a whole gps unit in a cell phone itself to TRACK someone? do you?
A tiny chip? nano trackers? same as they been doing to fingerling fish for yrs ?etc a small implanted schip that is picked up with sattalite ..., etc.

Tags& the taged - for tommorrows& todays future& safety & piece of mind.... the next 50 yrs should be intresting[&o]

[stealthycat]

1eyedfish - They're using a resource thats already there. Cell phones have been on the cutting edge of technology for years now, and the latest has been the GPS enabled handsets. This was done originally for E-911 (enhanced 911). See, use to be a 911 call told the operator nothing - it was the caller. Now you dial 911, say "I am in ....." and hang up, and the cops will be all over the place that call was made in minutes. How ? GPS enabled phones and E-911 that allows wireless networks to track your calls from cell site to site, sector to sector and translate that info onto a grid of your local areas.

Thia concept of a web-based tracking simply puts the technology thats already there into the hands of everybody.

[logs]

They are your Children (generalization) and you should know best what you must do to keep them safe from their own actions and behaviors. If your child is giving you cause not to trust them than this may help you feel better and allow you to provide them limited freedom with boundries.
If you give one of these to your child because you fear the worst from an outside threat I certianly can understand that also.
I think it is a one on one issue depending on the situation.

The main thing is it is an aide to help both the parent and child and not a replacement for parental or juvenile responsibility.

[bigbulls]

The main thing is it is an aide to help both the parent and child and not a replacement for parental or juvenile responsibility.

If it is used like that. That's the problem though, many "parents" will think as long as they are being tracked then let them do what they want. If this were to be used as an aide that would be great. But I feel that many would use this as a way to free up their schedule. "Oh as long as Johnny is at such and such place he is A-OK." Yeah right!!

I also have to think how we, as adults, would feel if we had someone tracking our every move. Say if the government was tracking us with our cell phones.

I know that I would have resented my parents a lot had they been tracking me with a cell phone and GPS. That can turn good kids into bad kids real quick. Especially if the parents do not sit down and tell the kids what they are doing and the kids find out that they have been tracked by their parents. The only thing that will enter the kids mind is "Ok, they trust me so little that they have to track me? Screw them, I'll do what the hell I want to do!!!" This is something that should be used with a high degree of discression.

Like Logs said if they are already really bad kids and can not be trusted as far as you could throw them then maybe its a good thing. I can, however, see this helping a lot if the worst were to happen such as a kidnapping.

[Coastie]

Consider this, if that technology is so good, why has it not been put into the GPS you tote into the woods?
You may break the laws of man with some impunity but the laws of physics don't allow tampering. A cellular phone may well work within some buildings, I will almost guarantee you that a GPS will not. There may be a few exceptions but I haven't found it yet.
Bring your GPS into your living room and turn it on, do you get a position?
I can tell you which cell site your transmission is being handled by with little difficulty, I don't want to know the general area my kid is in, I want to know within a couple of yards where he/she is, if your cell phone has a built in GPS receiver and it is in a place it can get a position, it can forward that position to many different places but if you are in a location that it cannot pick up the satellites you're SOL. The chip within the cell phone that is the GPS receiver, is without doubt smaller and dedicted to one sole purpose, but it is no better at that function than any other.

[burniegoeasily]

I can see pros, and cons. Pro.s would be, the kids would be easier to find if
abducted or in an accident. Con.s., your kids might distance themselves from
you because they feel you do not trust them.