Cell Phones As People Trackers

Cell phones with GPS technology built in are beginning to appear on the market, enabling parents to keep tabs on kids and, potentially, find them should the need arise.

Of course, anyone can use the devices to do the same with anyone else, points out BestStuff.com Senior Editor David Gregg.

On The Early Show Wednesday, Gregg noted that Sprint is the first major wireless provider to launch such a service, which the company calls "Family Locator."

Gregg explains that GPS stands for Global Positioning System. It consists of 24 orbiting satellites that transmit continuous signals to GPS receivers. The latitude and longitude of a GPS receiver can be determined by the position of at least three of these satellites. Although GPS was originally developed for the Pentagon, it became available for consumer use, primarily as a navigational tool, in the mid 1980s. Of course, GPS is a popular feature in cars and trucks these days.

According to Gregg, cell phones have been using GPS technology since early 2000. Nextel offered a driver navigation service for consumers and another tracking service used by the government to track emergency calls.

What makes Sprint's service different is, among other things, its cost: $9.99 a month. People can track or locate others without disturbing their activities, receive notification when someone enters or leaves a designated area, and quickly and easily send text messages to others. The service uses GPS to determine the location of authorized mobile handsets, which it then displays on an interactive map.

In a demonstration playfully dubbed, "Where's Harry?" Gregg used the service to find co-anchor Harry Smith. The service found him, in New York's Central Park, but said Smith was within 1,000 yards of an address that Smith said was actually much further away than that.

Gregg observed that the demo happened to spotlight potential problems with the service: It won't always work well in areas with poor cell phone coverage, or when satellites don't have a direct line of sight with the device being sought.

Still, to activate the service, Gregg says, parents and guardians list up to four phone numbers they want to locate. For additional security, parents create a safety word that parent and child both use during the registration process, to ensure permission has been granted by both parties. Parents can also give permission to others, such as a grandparent or nanny, to locate a child.

When a parent or guardian requests the child's location, Sprint Family Locator uses GPS technology to pinpoint the location and display it on an interactive map, along with the street address and surrounding landmarks. The map shows up on the parent's or guardian's phone or PC. The child is notified by a text message each time his or her location is provided to the parent or guardian, ensuring open communication. The child and parent have the option of having the phone vibrate when the text message is received or using an audible tone to alert the child that he or she has been located.

Once the youngster is located, the parent or guardian can immediately call or send a text message to the child's phone.The parents or guardian can set alerts to notify them about whether the child arrives at a specified location, such as school, home, or a relative's house, at a designated time. For instance, a parent or caregiver can be notified about whether a child arrives at school by 8:15 a.m. each day.

Information on recent location requests is provided in text and map form.

The service's accuracy depends on whether the phone can be located by GPS technology, which is the most accurate, or by cell tower location. When the phone can be located by GPS, the service is accurate within a few yards. If the phone is locatable only by cell tower location, the accuracy is usually within 50 to 100 yards, but may be 500 yards or more.

Sprint Family Locator can only find phones that are in their coverage area and that are turned on. Since you may want to schedule safety checks during school hours, you should set your children's phone to silent or vibrate to avoid interrupting their classes.

Gregg adds that only the Sprint account holder who is financially responsible for a handset can grant permission for Family Locator to locate that handset. As an extra layer of security, this account holder must grant permission from his or her password-protected account. Only people OKed by the account holder can locate a handset, and only with passwords the account holder approves.

Gregg stresses that Family Locator is an aid, not a substitute for proper parental supervision. It's meant to provide peace of mind for both the parent and child. Child and parent must mutually agree to use the service by providing a unique security code created by the parent during registration.

The service wasn't developed as a means to provide a "watchdog" service for parents. In a world filled with scary possibilities, the service is meant to deliver an added degree of security to both parent and child.

Sprint Family Locator is available for download on 17 phone models and can be used to locate 30 GPS-enabled phone models on the Nationwide Sprint PCS Network and the Nextel National Network. Subscribers can register up to four phones to find, get unlimited location requests, and send 100 text messages to each child's phone.

The Walt Disney Company Disney just announced a similar, cell phone-based locator service. Its phones will be designed to appeal to kids, and will operate on Sprint's network.

Other GPS products meant to help track and find people and deemed noteworthy by Gregg include: