It’s 11pm on a Friday night. Do you know where your children are or what they’re up to?
Even as parents worry that certain technology, such as Internet chat rooms or questionable television programming, can put their children in danger, other advances in technology are making it possible for them to keep a closer eye on the kids than ever.
The social networking Web site www.MySpace.com has consistently made headlines as a potential territory for sexual predators searching for minors. When the site became a hotbed for gang activity and other inappropriate uses by students, many South Valley schools blocked the site from computers on campus. Greg Camacho-Light, vice principal of Gilroy High School, went so far as to create a fictitious profile on the site to monitor students’ activity, and parents are starting to follow suit, said Michael Beebe, a Gilroy police detective.
“I know anecdotally from people at work that parents have created profiles on MySpace and befriended their children without their knowledge,” he said. “Mostly, they’re shocked at what their children are revealing on their space in terms of personal information. I think it’s a neat idea to keep track of kids that way.”
But some teenagers disagree.
“I think monitoring my MySpace would be crossing the line – I wouldn’t like it,” said Hollister resident Greg Smith, 17. “It wouldn’t be a big deal if my parents read my MySpace because I don’t have anything to hide on there, but I think parents should respect their kids’ privacy.”
Parental controls available from most Internet providers to monitor what children can view online, and making sure the computer is in a public part of the house rather than in a child’s bedroom are other good tools for keeping children safe, Beebe said.
The V-Chip provides parents a way to censor what children have access to on television. The Federal Communications Commission has adopted rules requiring most new television sets to be equipped with the chip, which blocks the display of programming based on its rating. The V-Chip reads information encoded in the rated program and blocks programs from the set based upon the rating selected by the parent, according to the FCC’s Web site, www.fcc.gov.
Cell phone carriers have jumped on the child-monitoring bandwagon with new phones that contain a Global Positioning System device. Depending on the carrier, parents can get a text-message notification if their child’s phone goes outside a certain perimeter. A parent can also use a computer or the phone to track where exactly their child’s cell phone – and therefore, presumably, their child – is located at any given moment.
“Right now, the technology is available on about 20 headsets for parents and several headsets for children,” said Kathleen Dunleavy, a Sprint wireless spokeswoman. “What happens is, the parent can use their phone to locate their child, and the child will get a text message that tells them someone has just located them at such-and-such address. Sprint did that to get away from some of the Big Brother privacy concerns. No one can be located without knowing it.”
Another defense against such privacy concerns is the way the GPS system is enabled on the phone, Dunleavy said. First, parents enable their phones to track their child’s phone and establish a password. Following a discussion with their children about the GPS, they give their child the password. The child must then enter the password into his or her phone before it can be tracked. If the child does not enter the password, the phone is not linked to the parents’ phone.
But privacy concerns aren’t so easily dissipated from the child’s point of view.
“Wow, I didn’t know there were phones that could do that,” said Hollister resident Vanessa Buelna, 16. “I think if my parents tried to do that, I wouldn’t be really upset, but I would definitely mind. It’s not necessary to track me down using a cell phone when they can just as easily call and check up on me. I think I’d feel kind of like my privacy would be violated if they tracked me down like that. I feel like they need to trust me.”
Verizon wireless hasn’t yet made GPS tracking technology widely available, but it is available on the company’s Migo phone, designed for 5– to 10-year-old children.
“The phone is designed very simply for young children to use – it’s not for gaming or texting – and it’s designed to be a safety device,” said Heidi Flato, a Verizon spokeswoman. “The keys on the phone can be preprogrammed with the primary guardians’ phone numbers, and the phone gives parents the ability to see where their children are. They can also set the phone up so that if it goes outside a certain area, the parent gets a text notification.”
Verizon introduced this GPS technology after parent focus groups showed a demand for it, Flato said, and the company has not ruled out introducing the system on phones for adults and teen-aged children sometime in the future.
Verizon and Sprint did not release numbers showing the popularity of the GPS technology.
One thing everyone can agree on is that communication between parents and children is far more important than any technological monitoring system.
Both Smith and Buelna said they understand why parents would want to know where their children are, but said talking to their kids and establishing trust is more important than using cell phone GPS systems.
“I think monitoring MySpace or using cell phones with a GPS system can be beneficial to some families, and probably cause problems for others,” Beebe said. “It’s hard to say – it’s a complicated thing. What’s the best way to keep track of your kids? I think if you had the answer to that, you’d be a millionaire.”
