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Parents, police monitoring kids’ mobile phones

Posted on April 20, 2009

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.”

A Lakewood, Colorado, woman said she outfitted her 12-year-old daughter’s phone with monitoring software after the girl was sexually assaulted by a man she met on MocoSpace, a mobile chat network.

“I wasn’t going to take away her cell phone, and I knew I had to do something,” said the woman, whose first name is Wendy. CNN.com is not printing her last name in accordance with its policy of not identifying the victims of sexual assault.

Wendy said the service has given her more peace of mind and her daughter a greater awareness of the responsibilities of having a cell phone.

Categories: US

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