A good find: GPS to locate the kids

As cell phones move into younger hands, various GPS locator services are being used by parents to follow those hands as children go from home to school, or to friends’ houses or after-class programs.

Several wireless carriers have such locator programs, generally for a fee of about $10 a month. And if you’re not ready to give your child a mobile, there are other devices that provide tracking, but monthly costs are generally higher than for similar cell phone services.

A growing number of children between ages 8 and 12 “now have a cell phone, so for a relatively small, additional cost, you can know where your child is,” said David Aylward, director of COMCARE Emergency Response Alliance, a national, nonprofit emergency communications advocacy group. “I don’t see a downside to that, especially for a younger child.”

Daniel Neal, CEO and founder of Kajeet, a pay-as-you-go cell-phone service geared to children, started offering its $9.99-a-month GPS Phone Locator program last year, and offers parents a free, three-month trial.

Kajeet’s GPS program has had “some very rapid adoption, particularly for children in the age range of 10 to 13,” he said.

Kajeet Using Kajeet’s GPS Phone Locator program, a parent can check the mobile or regular Web to show the location of a child's phone. The map here indicates the phone is within 65 yards of the location.

“What we see are a very large number of single parents we serve, who are off trying to be the breadwinners, and the child is either likely to be home alone, or with another adult,” he said. A phone, in combination with a location program, acts as a “modern latchkey.”

About 41 percent of 8- to 12-year-old children in the United States have cell phones, according to the Yankee Group technology researching and consulting firm.

A number of wireless carriers are adding parental control features to ease parents’ minds about how, how much and when their children’s cell phones are used.

Locator services add another level of oversight, although Neal, a parent, said, “The reason we call it GPS Phone Locator is that it’s intended to locate the phone, not necessarily a person.

“It’s an important distinction because these are useful tools, but we don’t believe they substitute for really being in touch with your child and other things that we should do for the safety of our children.”

For GPS to work on a phone, the phone has to be turned on, something that can be easy to forget — whether on purpose or not.

"These services — ours and everyone else's — only work if the phone is turned on. There's no bypassing that," said Neal.

Tracking parents, siblings
While parents keeping track of their kids’ whereabouts is the main use of such GPS programs, it’s not the only one.

“We’re seeing adults using it with their elderly parents, just to make sure mom or dad didn’t get lost when they were driving to their doctor’s appointment, that kind of thing,” said Emmy Anderson of Sprint, which offers Sprint Family Locator.

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“We’re also seeing siblings using it, for example, if both of them are away at different colleges, and they just want to make sure the other is safe on a date.”

Sprint, Verizon Wireless and Alltel have family locator plans for a monthly charge of $9.99. AT&T and T-Mobile do not have such programs.

Verizon Wireless’ Chaperone 2.0 location service works in conjunction with VZ Navigator, the company’s GPS program, on up to four phones.

“Once you locate your child on a mobile device, you can press a button and get turn-by-turn directions to that location,” said Jack McArtney, the company’s associate director of advertising and content standards.

Parents can also use the “Child Zone” feature, which lets them set up geographical boundaries around locations, such as a friend’s house or a ball field, and receive a text message alert when their child arrives or leaves that “zone.”

Sprint’s Family Locator and Alltel’s Family Finders programs are similar to Verizon Wireless.

Sprint also offers Family Watchdog Mobile, in conjunction with the Family Watchdog Web site.

Family Watchdog sends a text message to parents, in either English or Spanish, if a registered sex offender “moves into your neighborhood, or next door to the babysitter, for example,” said Anderson of Sprint.

The service is free, but text messaging charges apply.