Parenting tech keeps tabs on children
SAN FRANCISCO: American parents may not have the resources of t he National Security Agency, but it’s not that hard for them to snoop on their smartphone-addicted kids.
A booming array of gadgets are being marketed to harried parents who want to keep tabs on their children, whether they are speeding in Mom’s car or texting after hours when they should be asleep.
There are fobs, watches and bracelets with location-sensing capabilities. Smart anklets track the ever-changing moods of babies. There is even a SleepIQ Kids Bed that can tip parents off when kids are up after hours.
Many of these devices — especially the ones designed to track older children — are reliant on the smartphones that teens hold so dear, given their location-tracking features.
“Parents want to feel more safe and in control of the situation; its a sort of feel-good thing that parents can do,” said Florida Atlantic University criminology professor Sameer Hinduja.
The six-year-old daughter of Frank Lee, a senior marketing manager at South Korean tech giant LG, sports playfully coloured GizmoPal wrist wear.
The LG device designed for children lets them make mobile phone calls to preprogrammed numbers by pushing a button, and also taps into GPS capabilities to let parents easily check whether they arrived safely at their expected destination.
GizmoPal can also receive calls, but only from select predesignated numbers.
“At first she was a little excessive in calling us,” Lee said.
“I told her to let me know when she wants to stop wearing it, but she doesn’t even like to take it off to let me charge it.”
Applications that run in the background on teens’ smartphones or tablets can access camera rolls, messages, web browsing activity and more, according to Hinduja.
In some cases, parents can set boundaries, or geo-fences, that will trigger text message or email alerts if children stray into areas that grownups have designated off-limits. “We’ve heard of parents putting micro-chips i n children,” said Robert Lowery of the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. — AFP