Technology offers new way to keep track of children

NORTHFIELD — Parents like Mike Atiles know it can be difficult to constantly keep track of your children's whereabouts.

Between soccer practice, kickboxing and going to the movies, his three children are all over the place, Atiles says. But now a new service being offered from a few wireless carriers will make his job a little easier.

Verizon Wireless rolled out a new service called the Chaperone on Monday. Using global positioning services, or GPS, technology, parents can now stay aware of their child's location using their cellular phone. At the push of a button, a parent can instantly know the location of a child's LG Migo phone using either their cell phone or the Internet.

“Chaperone is not a substitute for parental supervision,” said Sheldon Jones, a spokesperson for Verizon Wireless. “But it can be a part of the parameters parents already have in place to communicate with their children.”

Verizon is not the first mobile carrier to offer the service. Sprint began offering the Sprint Family Locator service in April, which is similar to Chaperone.

“Sprint Family Locator is a valuable tool that can help parents and guardians have a better sense of their children's whereabouts when they're apart,” said Danny Bowman, vice president of product marketing for Sprint.

Both services also allow parents to set a designated area for their child. If the child leaves the area, the parent is instantly notified via text message. Family Locator includes a feature called Safety Check, which allows parents to set scheduled alerts notifying them when their child arrives at a specified location. For example, a parent can set a daily alert for 8:15 a.m. to know if a child arrived at school safely. Many child-safety groups nationwide are supportive of these services.

“We encourage parents and guardians to maintain open and frequent communication with their children” said Nancy A. McBride, national safety director for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. “We also remind them to supervise their children and discuss safety tips with them for staying safer when traveling to and from school or after-school activities.”

Both Family Locator and Chaperone are able to create perimeters using technology known as geofencing. Geofencing services are already in use by employers who wish to keep track of employees working out of the office.

Nextel, which operates jointly with Sprint, offers Mobile Locator to employers for such purposes. Jones says that Chaperone is a location-based service, not a tracking service, and that from the program's inception, Verizon was “in tune to the security and privacy of our customers.”

At the end of a Chaperone session, any information used to locate the child is erased, Jones said. No information is kept in a database and is only accessible through the phone or through the Chaperone Web site. Chaperone can only be activated on a family plan and cannot be purchased via the Internet, which helps maintain proper security and privacy features for parents, Jones said.

Atiles, who works at the Verizon Wireless store in Northfield, is in favor of services like Chaperone and Family Locator. He says that although giving a child a cell phone is a good way to keep in contact, these services create another advantage for a parent like himself.

“You just want to make sure they're in the places they should be,” said Atiles.