Cell Phone Child Protection

Thursday, April 06, 2006


Yesterday we gave news of a new cell phone from Disney which allowed parents to monitor there children's phone usage and even track their whereabouts using a GPS system installed on the phone. Now we have discovered a new type of cell phone child protection system which will alert parents whenever their child goes near a registered sex offender's home.

This cell phone child protection idea was started by Joe Dawson whose 11 year old daughter was a victim of a sex offender. She has teamed up with a Californian based technology firm to introduce this new cell phone child protection system. The technology works by being interlinked with the Watchdog's national database of registered sex offenders and monitors the child's whereabouts by GPS. The cell phone then informs parents through email, text message, or pager if their child is in the area of a registered offender.

The new cell phone child protection service is set for release within the next 60 days and costs $19.99 a month for the first phone and then and additional $9.99 for each extra cell phone.

Some may feel that this cell phone child protection system is an exaggerated reaction to Joe Dawson's traumatic experience and question how useful the technology actually is. It is possibly just easier to inform your children not play in certain areas. However these child protection cell phones will make it clear to parents where sex offenders are registered making it easier to keep their children informed on where they can and cannot go. But the cell hone child protection service only knows the position of the sex offender's home and not the whereabouts of the individual and hence is very limited in that respect.