Would you be in favor of tracking your child's every move electronically?

Registerguard


New gadgets are starting to show up on the market that will track your children's activities as to how far they are driving, what they buy, what they eat and whether or not they show up for class.

The gadget involved is a simple cell phone that transmits location data. The details are delivered by e-mail, cell phone text message or the Web.

The service called Teen Arrive Alive
promotes a system that for $19.99 a month, you can monitor your teen seven days a week 24 hours a day.
You will no longer have to call your teen, or have them call you to find out where they are. Parents can simply go online or call the locator hotline to find out where your child is.

Teen Arrive Alive provides not only location, but also the speed and direction of travel.
The system also features a live detailed map on their web site showing your child's location, direction and speed. Information is gathered every two minutes and maintained for seven days.

Another service known as "Alerts" from U.K.-based Langtree SkillsCenter Ltd. Parents are notified by text message, e-mail or phone whether a student has shown up for class and can get progress reports (good and bad) on schoolwork. Just starting up, the company has signed about 10 U.K. schools so far and is expanding to the United States.

Several companies that have been around for a while Digital Angel Corp. and VeriChip Corp both offer human implantable RF ID microchip technology for everything from GPS tracking to access control in real-time.

All these companies advertise the positive benefits of these various devices. From locating your child to secure access to a sensitive area, the technology is now available to do it.

Wearable or implantable devices that track you are becoming the things of the future. There are some companies especially high security companies are requiring their employees to be implanted with a chip that will allow you access to secure areas.

The question is would you want to be implanted for a job? I would not.

As far as having my child monitored by their cell phone, I can see both sides of the situation. I can also see having these devices in your cell phone and not even being aware of it.

In fact, the FCC requires that all new cell phones have a GPS tracking capability built into them. The GPS feature is only supposed to be activated when you call 911, the question is, how do you really know when it is turned on or not.