Last night I registered my 12 year old daughter's mobile phone on a tracking system so I know where she is whenever I choose to look.

Is this a) an infringement of her privacy or b) a perfectly reasonable use of technology to increase safety and peace of mind.

I don't see anything wrong with it, you should expect to know where she is at any time.

It's only moral in the sense that you seemingly don't trust her!

Does she know about it?

SHE'S 12 YEAR OLD FOR GOD SAKE. SHE NEEDS PROTECTING whilst at the same time being given a bit of freedom to explore life not covered in cotton wool by over bearing parents.... To quantify that I was chucked out at 7 year old to "go play outside" and we would roam the streets, climb in the graveyards, play footie ( doorsie) in the back streets and do reckless things down the bomadies *( houses round albany street / warden street that were getting knocked down) only going home to grab a jam sandwhich and off out again until 10 pm which was curfew hour. Not a minute late or you got your arse tanned.... Later on as an adult I was accused of having wrapped the son in cotton wool and although he's turned out fantastic he could be a bit more assertive for this day and age.

So Mr I no it's not an infringment of her rights, it's peace of mind for her and you. If she goes off it and bins the phone you have not lost anything but if she gets picked up and the phone is on then at least you have a chance.... as the macanns if they would register a phone for their 4 yr old.

I can understand there being a moral issue if she was 16 or over (or 18 depending on when people are classed as an adult these days) but if she is under 16 then you have an obligation of protection. Hence, there is no moral issue in my opinion - you are only fulfilling your parental responsibility.

.... will it find my mobile when I lose it in the house ?? Even ringing it has it's down side as it often goes over to message before I hear it ring....

Portsmouth is right, tho, does Miss I know about it? If she does and she agrees, there's no problem.

I wouldn't do this, myself, even tho I couldn't take child safety issues more seriously. You have to make sure a child knows potential danger areas and that s/he tells you where they're going, with whom, and when they'll be home.

Anything more than that might give the message that there are dangers everywhere (there aren't, despite the tabloids) and also undermine her independence.

it wouldn't be possible for us to do this with our Nicole.
She loses her phone about a fortnight after she gets one. She's just lost her third one this year!!!

If she disagrees she could swap phones with a mate.

Well, you may think that, but part of the question was, is it an infringement of privacy? Which is a bit more debateable than you are implying, Mr Mutley

No, she doesn't know about it but I agree with Mutley, Mr Choker and Elvis. She is only 12 but is at the stage where she's demanding a bit of freedom. The other day she was supposed to be back in a 7 but rolled in at 9.30pm. We had been trying to call her for the past few hours but 'no answer'. Obviously she is grounded for the rest of the decade but nevertheless, I would have preferred to have had the ability to track her.

Seems a good thing to me...Whats the company called Mr i ?

Well, that's a bit different, isn't it....if she doesn't accept the ground rules she has to accept a bit of remedial action.
I would still tell her I'd done it, though

Is it literally like a GPS/satnav, where you know pretty much exactly where she is, or are we talking about something that only the police could find out through stronger tracking?

The more I've thought about it, the less arguments I can see against it. I wouldn't tell her because she'd be conscious and would find some way of getting around it.

My personal opinion is this is a great idea, however i would let her know about it, if she finds out about it im sure she will Resent you (ok maybe a strong word) for it ! even at 12 she may feel let down about mis trust blah blah blah

The company is called child locate www.childlocate.co.uk

It's basically tracks the mobile phone by triangulation so the more populated the area the more precise the positioning. She's had the bollockings and my foot up her arse but I like the idea of the peace of mind.

She's 13 shortly but its a big bad world out there are parts of Nottingham that I think twice about wandering around let alone a young girl.

I think people are relating your situation to small towns like Hartlepool, Durham, Shotton etc Mr I - you are absolutely right. I wouldn't give a flying one what the daughter or anyone else thought about it, if I lived in a place like Nottingham or any other big city and the associated everyday violence that exists in such places (and it does) - then my decision would be the same as yours. She is a minor and therefore is your responsibility, therefore she or anybody else cannot complain about privacy invasion. What would be the first thing most people say when you didn't know here whereabouts, and something happened?
"What were the parents doing"?
"What kind of parents has she got"? etc etc
It has to be said that even towns like Hartlepool are going to be horrible places in the future if current trends continue.

er




morals

oh aye............


funny how these things come back to bite you on the arse!

Does it matter where you live ? Down here courts are always sentencing teenagers for robbing foreign students A serial attacker 1s beating up women in Hastings .Sadly girls are as much likely to get beaten up by others in a pack ..As for Nottingham Mr i me mam lived in Gedling for a while even the charity shop she worked in had cctv

If I told her the phone was registered she is savvy enough to find the website and cancel the permission. She would also probably leave the phone somewhere in much the same way as you've suggested.

I done my Eon training in Nottingham and i was warned not to go into certain areas so I did... thank fook for a fast car..... as my tattoo say these colours don't run but seeing the gangs on the corners made my car run faster.

If it's that bad surely the sensible thing is to move house?

It's not that bad unless you go into a couple of bad areas. Most of Nottingham is perfectly nice. Besides, even if I wanted to, moving house ain't that easy these days.

Ooh, I could imagine paranoid people registering their other halves to keep an eye on them!!

I think it's wrong, we are conditioned to live in a climate of fear, how can kids be expected to develop if you are constantly monitoring them...we are walking into 1984 in the most insidious of ways...and when does the 'monitoring' cease...? By the way, who else can monItor your childs movements via the system?....
kids are tarnsported to school to avoid the traffic mostly created by parents...transporting their kids to school ... we are creating generations of cosseted little gods who have their every move watched all in the name of caring.

I thought that too. The safeguard is that a letter is sent to your home address - the address registered to your credit card, and it contains a code that has to be entered on t'internet before you can use the system. You also have to return a text message to the phone to say its ok.