Verizon to Launch Mobile 'Chaperone' Service

Billosaur writes "CNET is reporting that Verizon will soon be offering a service (branded "Chaperone") which will allow parents to keep track of their cell phone-carrying children. Following on the heels of a similar service started by Sprint in April, the system will allow parents 'to set up geographic limits and receive text alerts if their children, who also carry phones, go too far from home. The service also lets parents check where their offspring are via a map on their cell phone or computer.' Disney will purportedly be offering a similar service when it begins selling mobile phones sometime this summer. It's 10pm -- do you know where you child's cell phone is?"

Comments

Hey susan, could I leave my phone with you?

[denis-The-menace]

That way I can take a plane to see that guy I met on MySpace in the middle east.

So much for that Chaperone.

Re:What did parents do before this?

[Stiletto]

Dual income households have become mandatory in most areas unless you're part of the relatively privileged few who can afford to have a spouse stay home and still maintain a roof over their heads and food on the table.

Waaaaah! Someone put a gun to my head and forced my lifestyle upon me!

I mean, seriously... how much does it really cost to "keep a roof over 2 people and keep them fed" in a normal "middle class" neighborhood? One could live quite comfortably for under $2000 a month, which is just over $11 an hour. I wouldn't say someone making over $11/hr is part of the "privileged few".

Now if you decide to start squeezing out kids you can't afford, that's another story. Again, nobody's putting a gun to your head.

Re:It depends on their purposes

[MarkusQ]

...then the resolution should be more than sufficient. (And before anyone cries that they would never do these sorts of things, they already do them. They just haven't gotten around to doing them to white US taxpayers. Yet.)

How would you know? Blackmail is most sucessful when it goes unreported. If the blackmailer is some shadowy arm of government or the police who are you going to report it to?

Are you telling me you've never heard of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI? Thanks to the FOIA, we now at least know some of what was done in the past. And yes, it does include blackmail. The great thing about evil bureaucracies (as opposed to, say, most evil individuals) is they tend to keep a copious paper trail.

--MarkusQ