Well yeah. And then eventually an audio feed. And then of course you never know when it's on.
and best of all,
there are no excuses for not being home on time."
The technology is being pushed by federal mandates to give more precise location information for people making emergency 911 calls from cellphones. But this new location-sensing capability can also track everyday activities.
For example, last year Nextel Communications Inc. began selling systems that vehicle fleet managers -- including Massachusetts officials who supervise snow-plowing contractors -- can use to track locations of workers using the GPS-enabled Motorola phones. And a number of companies, including Microsoft Corp. are developing phone-tracking software with computerized maps that could quickly become affordable for parents committed to keeping tabs on their kids. More than 20 million GPS-enabled wireless phones are in service across the country, although many operate on networks that have yet to activate full location services.
The promise and pitfalls of GPS-assisted parental supervision are emerging as cellphone ownership is becoming almost as common a feature of adolescent life as backpacks and video games.
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For families already fighting about how much a teen can use the phone, its potential use as a tracking device could well become a new source of parent-child conflict. Keeping tabs on minor children is legal, but how much privacy can be claimed by those youths who use a parent-funded phone is a subject for debate.
"Parents can do a whole bunch of things to keep tabs on their kids' use of technology, assuming they can outsmart them," said John Reinstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.
"And kids don't have to take the phone with them," he added.
The hysterical thing is that "...don't have to take the phone with them." Right.
So the kids rich enough to get their own cell phones can scam the parents with a dummy placement.
But the other kids are never gonna know those first steps of freedom.
Like being somewhere entirely on your own for the first time, being somewhere and nobody knows where you are.
A small price to pay for security.
