New technology allows parents to monitor their child's cell phone

I am often asked by parents of tweens or young teens if there is a way to monitor the activity on their children's cell phones. The following is an excerpt from a CNN.com article entitled, "Parents, police monitoring kids' cell phones" that might be helpful if you're in that situation and worried about their safety as new users.

(CNN.com; Published on April, 20, 2009) -- One evening last winter, Mike Harris was watching his local TV news when he saw a segment that caught his attention: Parents were using software to monitor their kids' cell phones.

Harris, an investigator for the Child Sex Internet Investigations Unit in Jefferson County, Colorado, thought the service could be a new tool for combating sexual predators.

Equipping his phone with the software, Harris posed as an underage child on social-networking sites and began luring pedophiles. He immediately got results. Since then, Harris has made 83 arrests of alleged sexual predators -- 44 of them with the help of the monitoring program.

"It makes life easy for me as an investigator. It saves me hours of time, which obviously means I have more time to go out and catch offenders," he said. The software also documents text messages and other data that can be used in court, he said. "Now all I have to do is go into the account and pull everything out that was done between that sex offender and me."

Programs such as My Mobile Watchdog and Mobile Spy are becoming increasingly popular with parents as more school-age children are carrying cell phones.

Parents say the services help them protect their kids against predators and also reduce "sexting," the growing practice of using mobile phones to share sexually explicit text messages and pictures. In 2008, Jessica Logan, a Cincinnati, Ohio, teen, hanged herself after her nude photo, meant for her boyfriend, was sent to teenagers at several high schools, exposing her to ridicule and taunts.

The monitoring programs work like this: Once a child's phone is equipped with the software, the parent or law enforcement officer creates a list of contacts -- close relatives, trusted friends -- who are authorized to communicate with the minor's phone.

An online file, accessed by the parent, stores all activity related to the child's phone, including text messages and shared photos. Any unauthorized number that contacts the child's phone gets flagged, and the parent or guardian receives a real-time text message alerting them to the infraction.

Parents pay a monthly fee -- about $10 -- for the service, which only works on so-called "smart phones" with Web access. My Mobile Watchdog also will alert parents if their child has removed the software from their phone.

eAgency Mobile Solutions of Newport Beach, California, is the creator of My Mobile Watchdog. Bob Lotter, the company's CEO, said he never imagined the software would become a tool for authorities cracking down on online sexual predators.

"The threat is huge," Lotter said. "There are so many different ways out there for child predators [to find victims] -- through Google, Yahoo, MySpace, Facebook and a host of other sites." (Click here to read the remainder of the article)

On a related note, if you live in or near Austin, Texas, I will be teaching a session based on my book, Logged On and Tuned Out at my home church on Tuesday evening, April 28th. I will be addressing ways parents can better equip their tweens and teens to use cell phones and the social networking sites in a safe and responsible manner. For more details or to register for the event, click here. Hope to see you there!