Category: For Teens

New Teen GPS Tracking Devices From Spy Centre Security

Spy Centre Security, a GPS tracking and “spy” device store has announced a new line of GPS tracking devices that they are marketing specifically for parents of teenagers.  According to their press release they have devices starting at $199 the “[make] it possible to get constant updates on your teenagers’ car.”  My initial thought was that if they have a real time teen GPS tracking device for that price then they are going to be pretty competitive in the tracking market.  The only other real time device that I am aware of is the Zoombak and that is retailing right now on Amazon for $125.  Most other real time trackers are going to cost from around $250 and up.

But upon further investigation, it appears that the claims made in the press release are a little misleading.  To those that don’t understand the distinction between a data logger (passive GPS) and a real time tracker (active GPS) could have been duped by the claim made by the following sentence:

At Spycentre.com we now sell GPS products starting at just $199 making it possible to get constant updates on your teenagers’ car.

(While this sentence does come from a site not associated with Spy Centre Security, it does contain their contact information and is very similar to a press release posted on the companies website on September 11, 2009. This leads me to believe that the message is legitimate.)

Consumers need to know the difference between a data logger and a real time tracker if they are to really understand how to best track their teen and to sift through clever marketing attempts of GPS manufacturers.

Teen GPS Tracking Data Loggers

A data logger is a GPS tracking device that simply records the position of the device at set intervals determined by the user or by the device itself.  In order to access the information that the device records, you must retrieve the device and download the contents onto your computer.  GPS tracking software then interacts with the data and plots it on an interactive Google Maps like interface.

Canmore USB GPS Tracking Stick

This type of tracking is great when you only need to know somethings trip after the fact.  For example, if you enjoy launching hobby rockets and you want to know how high and how fast your rocket travels then using a data logger is a great way to get that information.

One of the newest types of data loggers to hit the market are GPS tracking sticks.  These devices are as large as a USB stick and very similar in build and shape.  They even have a male USB connection built in for a simple downloading process.  Just plug the device in and watch the software take over and do the work of analyzing the data for you.

Certainly powerful stuff, but not what most parents think of when they want to know where there teen is. These devices can be great for getting a good understanding of your teen’s driving habits – but they are not good for knowing where your teen is when they are late in getting home. They are not good when a natural disaster strikes and you need to know where your teen is right now. For that, you would need a real time GPS tracker.

With that said, a data logger is what is currently being offered for $199 on the Spy Centre Security website. I wonder how their tracking stick compares with this $145 one from Amazon?

Teen Real Time GPS Tracking

A real time GPS tracking device is one that is able to send its position information from the device to a third party so that the position of the device can be seen in real time.  This is what most parents are going to think about when they are looking into GPS trackers for their teenager.  They are also fairly expensive devices that will end up costing you hundreds of dollars up front and a regular subscription fee for the data transfers between your tracking device and the company’s servers.

The real time trackers available through Spy Centre Security are certainly expensive.  The cheapest models that they offer run $450 and have a service plan of $30 a month according to the press release mentioned above.  The first year of use will run $810 – a steep price to pay for being able to track your teen’s car with GPS.

The Cell Phone Tracking Solution

The obvious solution to this issue is to find a cheaper, real time tracking solution for parents of teenagers.  The best solution that I have come across is to turn a teen’s cell phone into a GPS tracking device.  Many of today’s cell phones already have a GPS antenna inside the phone that allows them to pick up GPS signals from outer space, eliminating the most obvious hurdle off the get go.  And since most teenagers want the latest and greatest cell phone you know that they probably already have a GPS enabled cell phone on them right now.

All that you now need to do is download some GPS tracking software for cell phones and you have a fully functional GPS tracking system in the palm of your teen’s hand.  There are plenty of paid services out there for parents looking at a paid option.  Most cell phone carriers offer something that you can take a look at that will add a nominal monthly fee to your cell bill.

Another option open to parents is to go with free GPS tracking software for cell phones.  This might take a little more work on your part of monitoring and installing the system, but can you beat free?

In the end, whatever you decide to do with your teen is really up to you.  Teen GPS tracking devices are relatively new, but that should not deter parents from taking advantage of this new and powerful technology to help them raise honest, law-abiding children who drive safely and come home on time.  While some might balk at tracking their teen with GPS, here at GPS For Today we feel like there are plenty of reasons why parents have every right to track a teen driver.  If you are interested in reading more about what we have to say on this topic here are some of the more important articles:

4 Types of Tracking Devices Explained

When you think about tracking devices these days your mind will automatically go to toward thinking about GPS. Our culture has enough exposure through experience, news shows like 60 Minutes, and crime show dramas that GPS tracking can be incredibly useful for law enforcement purposes. But we are also beginning to realize that the ability to have tracking devices on our person at all times is also a desirable condition. We think of how useful it would be to attach a GPS watch to an Alzheimer’s patient so that if they wander off they can be easily located by their family. Or we might see how beneficial it might be to be able to monitor our teen’s driving while they are out on the road using the family car. We may even see how easily a tracking unit could help us make a decision about whether or not a spouse is cheating on us, the location information provided by a data logging GPS confirming our suspicions about their fidelity.

With all this utility staring us in the face it is no wonder that we are becoming a GPS-centric society. New devices and new ways to track things are being introduced at an ever increasing pace. Tracking technology still has a long way to go, and as our ability to make more powerful satellites, more accurate time pieces, and more sensitive GPS receivers continues to grow our ability to do more with tracking devices will increase. As this happens, more and more of our tracking dreams will become a reality.

In the mean time, lets take a look at the current state of tracking devices to help us get an idea of what is possible and where things might end up going to.

Cell Phone Tracking Devices

iPhone GPS Tracking

The first tracking device that most people are going to recognize is the cell phone. This is probably the most widely used tracking device today but very few people actually realize that there cell phone can be used to track their movements. All a cell phone needs is a signal from a cell phone tower and to be turned on for it to be one of the most powerful tracking devices on the market.

The way this particular device works is going to depend on your cell phone make and on the provider that you use, but you can summarize how each works by bringing up the principle of trilateration. How this works is that the cell phone does some fancy math to determine its location based upon the know location of either a cell phone tower or a GPS satellite, telling the mobile phone exactly where it is at any given moment in time. (I have explained this concept in my post about how GPS tracking watches work, so you can see that article if you want a more in depth explanation.)

This has obvious implications as a personal tracking device. Since most people use cell phones in some capacity almost everyone is going to be able to be tracked in this way. Now some phones and phone service providers like to make the tracking function of their phones widely know – for example the iPhone, Blackberry, and other smartphones will shout this information from the top of their lungs – but there are a lot of other phones that offer this functionality that can be used as tracking devices on a consumer level. The reason that I say on the consumer level is that the police and other first responders have the ability to track cell phones of all varieties, thanks in part to a 2005 law requiring this functionality for emergency response purposes.

Some mobile providers will offer consumer grade tracking on their phones as part of a family tracking plan. I have seen rates for this starting at $5 a month – which is really inexpensive for those who already have the data plan that these programs often require. But there are also ways to get GPS tracking on your cell phone for free. I have compiled a list of free GPS applications for cell phones, but these services are generally restricted to certain phones and require that you have a robust data plan to take full advantage of their functionality. They are extremely powerful and cheap, but even cheap GPS tracking can be expensive if you can’t afford a data plan for your phone.

Vehicle Tracking Devices

Another type of tracking device that people are going to think about are vehicle tracking devices. These are really commercial grade trackers that offer a whole host of important fleet management features for businesses and corporations. Some of the better devices can do much more than simply track the movements of a vehicle. They can:

  • Give directions to a driver, making routing and other business related activities much easier and much more efficient.
  • Monitor important vehicle metrics like speed and direction as well as other vehicle performance indicators like the ease of stops and starts.
  • Cute an idling engine that has been running too long.
  • Turn off vehicle lights that have been left on by a driver.
  • Give GPS coordinates to the authorities in case of a theft or medical emergency.
  • Serve as an electronic and positional time card, helping workers work harder while on the clock.

The thing about vehicle tracking systems is that they are anything but cheap. The tracking device itself will run you several hundred dollars depending on the level of functionality that you want the device to have.  GPS bus tracking devices are going to be different than GPS fleet tracking devices because they will do different things. They will therefore have different costs associated with them.

Another things about vehicle tracking that is going to raise the price a bit is paying for the tracking service with your provider. This can range from tens of dollars per unit to hundreds of dollars per unit. Most companies are going to give you a reduced price for each unit you track, but there is little you can do to reduce costs here expect for try and find a free GPS tracking software package. These do exist, but instead of money you will have to invest time to get the system to work just like you want it. For some individuals it is just going to better to go with a paid tracking service.

Car Tracking Devices

Very similar to vehicle tracking devices, car tracking devices are used track a car or vehicle but they often lack some of the functionality that the more commercial grade vehicle trackers might have. For example, a car tracker usually doesn’t have the ability to lock and unlock doors, cut the engine, or notify a driver if they are idling too long. A vehicle tracker does this because that is the market it is catered to (businesses with fleets of vehicles it wants to monitor) while car trackers appeal to individuals who want to see where their car is or to recover a stolen vehicle. In the world of GPS car tracking, there are two main uses: to monitor an individual’s activity or to recover a stolen vehicle.

There are a few different reasons why a person might want to install a GPS tracking device inside of a car for the purpose of people monitoring. One reason is that the person might be a suspect in an ongoing police investigation and the police want to monitor their activity without the cost associated with physical surveillance. Using GPS is a lot more cost effective, and as long as a warrant has been obtained, they can track an individual for as long as the court deems appropriate.

Zoombak GPS Tracker

Another reason might be to keep track of a teen’s driving habits. By installing a GPS device in their car you can get a lot of information about how they drive, where they drive, and when they drive. This can be used to enforce family driving rules and create a safe environment for them to drive in. Teen drivers have one of the highest incidents of fatal car crashes of the age groups recorded by insurance companies, so finding a way to help them drive safely should be the top priority of any parent. For some, this means using a GPS tracking device as an aid.

Still another reason to install a car tracking device would be to see if a spouse is cheating on you. While most of the time a tracking device is only going to tell you where your spouse has been, this knowledge can be extremely useful in determining the truth about their actions. If they said they are going to a friends house but their car ends up somewhere else then you know that something might be going on with them. You can call them very innocently and ask them how so-and-so’s house is going and if they tell you that everything there is fine even though they are not there you might know that something is up with them and that you should maybe investigate things further.

For each of these uses you will notice that being able to do a lot of the stuff that GPS vehicle tracking can do is superfluous. What a person in this situation needs to do is be able to track the movements of a person – and not always in real time either. While it is nice to be able to track a teen in real time or to see if a spouse is cheating as it happens, a data logger will generally do just as a good.

However, when it comes to being able to recover a stolen vehicle having a real time GPS tracking device is going to be a good idea. That way, when the criminal takes away your vehicle the police can have real time tracking information that will lead them right to your property. That way the criminal can be caught and your property can be returned to you. One of the major theft recovery GPS tracking devices is LoJack and it has been around for years. It is very effective at helping police find stolen property.

GPS Tracking Watches

Finally, the last tracking device that we should talk about are <link>GPS tracking watches</link>. A GPS watch is exactly what it sounds like – a watch that has all the functionality of a GPS device. When you take a look at it, there are two main types of GPS tracking watches and each type has a corresponding use. There are watches that act as data loggers and there are watches that act as real time trackers.

Garmin 405 GPS Tracking Watch

A data logger might be something like the Garmin Forerunner 405. This is a fitness GPS tracking watch that is the top of the line and has tons of really cool features. It is great for serious athletes who want to take their training to the next level and is even better for multi-sport athletes. When paired with a heart rate monitor it provides some of the best workout metrics of any device on the market. It is also a stereotypical example of what a data logging GPS tracking watch is good for. The device logs workout information like speed, altitude, direction, total time working out, and heart rate. This watch is just a data logger marketed toward runners and is the ultimate fitness tracking device.

GuardianLion LEO GPS Tracking Watch

A real time tracker might look something more like the GuardianLion Leo. This is a full featured GPS tracking device that fits on your wrist. It combines the best of cell phone technology with the power of GPS location data to create the ultimate safety device for kids and those suffering from Alzheimer’s. It allows parents or caretakers to have a real time knowledge about the location of their charge and even allows them to get into contact with that individual through the watch itself! This is extremely powerful technology and until recently these watches were so bulky as to be comical. Apparently, the GuardianLion Leo is small enough to fit comfortably on a writs and actually looks something like a normal watch.

The Future of Tracking Devices

The future is going to be portable, personal tracking devices. As we can already see with the GPS tracking watches and cell phones, the technology is making great strides toward becoming more and more consumer friendly. It is being packaged and delivered in a way that is very palatable for consumers and this means that tracking devices are going to be here for a very long time and in many different forms. If I had to put money on one become dominate it would have to be the cell phone, but the future is by no means certain. We will just have to wait and see what happens – but I know this for sure, GPS is going to be a big part of my childrens’ lives and an even bigger part of their childrens’ lives.

How to Reward and Punish Your Teens Driving Habits

Teen’s are terrible drivers.  Their unique combination of inexperience and raging hormones make them them the most likely among all age ranges to get into fatal car crashes.  As concerned parents we want to get our teens to drive safely and to obey the rules of the road, especially when driving home at night or when their friends are with them in the car.  These are the times that we wish that the beneficial effect that we have on our teen’s driving would be felt the most, but these are often the times when our child is the least likely to drive like we are right there with them.

Teen Car Crash
You never want to receiver that call from the police that your teen has been in a a car crash. Using GPS tracking in their car is a great way to help them drive like you are there with them.

I have already talked extensively about how GPS tracking can put you in the car with your teen, so I am not going to rehash that discussion here in full.  Instead, I thought it might be a good idea to discuss some of the different parenting techniques that we can employ once we have installed the GPS tracking device inside out teen’s car. We will begin with a discussion of the teen’s rewards and follow that up with a discussion of the punishments associated with bad driving practices.

But before we do, we should look at some of these important teen tracking tips:

  • Tell your teen about the tracker – You cannot make the punishment and reward system for safe driving work for your family if your teen is unaware that the GPS tracking device exists.  Tell them about your plan in such a way that they will get on board with your desire to monitor their driving activity.  Even if they don’t like the idea at first, they will warm up to it after you lay out some effective rewards and punishment.
  • Be very clear about the rewards – Communicating clear and worthwhile rewards to your teen is going to make this whole process a lot easy.  They need to know the answer to the question “What’s in it for me?” question right away.   If you can’t communicate that to the in 5 minutes then you need to rethink your reward system communication.
  • Be even clearer about the punishments – You are probably going to need to punish your teen driver at one point in time.  The best way to do so is to communicate the consequences of their actions very, very clearly.  They need to know exactly what is going to happen to them when they do something wrong so that there is no room for them wiggle out of the consequences of the action that the GPS tracker caught them doing.
  • Make it fun and safe – Teen’s love the idea of “fun” and, as a parent, if you can make something that you want them do be fun then you are well on your way to getting them to successfully accomplish that which you want them to.  It can be very satisfying as a parent to watch your teen act safely because they value it and think it is “fun” – you know that all your hard work is really paying off!

How To Reward Your Teen

Rewarding your teen should be more about character than about materialistic things.  What I mean by this is that you want to reward your teen with added responsibility and freedom than with cool toys and nice clothes.  You want your teen to grow up and experience what life is like for themselves, not treat them like a little child who is motivated by empty and shallow things.  So in order to do that you need to sit down and think about what ways you can reward your child’s good driving habits that will enable them to mature and grow into the full person that they are meant to be.

An example reward might be something like an extended curfew or additional car use privledges.  By extending their curfew you are communicating to your teen that their driving habits are safe and that they are worthy to be trusted.  The more personal freedom that you give your teen, the more that you teach them being wise and safe is a good thing to do, the more you will teach your teen to be an upstanding member of society and a good person.

Another similar example of this is by giving your teen additional car use privledges.  You could let them drive the car to a friends house or to the mall.  You might even begin to trust them with driving their siblings to after school activities or sporting events.  Either way, your teen will learn that their behavior is being rewarded by giving them greater access to the family vehicle.

So that covers the actual rewards that one might think of giving their teen, but what about the things that the teen will be rewarded for? You obviously want to reward them for good driving habits, but what exactly are the habits that you most want to reward?

Here is a list of some of the more important driving practices:

  • Obeying the speed limit – This is very easy to monitor using a GPS tracking device for cars.  Since they take constant measurements of the vehicles position all they need to do to calucluate speed is take the distance traveled and divide it by the time elapsed.  Most GPS devices can monitor speed even if they aren’t a GPS tracking device, so it is pretty easy for parents to monitor this aspect of their teen’s driving.  (This is also very important for saving money on gas costs!)
  • Taking turns at appropriate speeds – Because you can monitor their speed it is easy enough to find their speed when taking turns.  Taking a turn too fast can signify inexperience on the part of your teen or that they pulled out in front of oncoming traffic, both things that you want to try and avoid if possible.
  • Making smooth starts and stops – Brakes are expensive and engines like to opperate under gradual increases of speed.  A smart, safe driver will treat their car right and reduce the need for preventable maintenance on their vehicle.
  • No erratic driving patterns – Tracking units are very percise, with some models being able to tell which lane a vehicle is in!  If your teen is switching lanes wildly then you will know that they are not driving safely.  You can also be able to see that their vehicle changes lanes well or makes turns in an appropriate fashion.

If your teen meets your safe driving requirement then it is time to reward them, but if they don’t you need to dole out punishments.

How To Punish Your Teen

When punishing your teen for poor driving I would recommend going with character punishments.  A teenager must know that the consequences of bad driving are very real and very, very serious.  Lives are on the line every time you step behind the wheel and a teen should be able to feel that when they do something stupid with a car.

A character punish could be something as sever as a suspension of car driving privileges, but it can also be something not necessarily car related.  In my opinion, taking away a teen’s driving privileges should only be done in the most dire conditions.   This is mainly because a teen cannot learn to drive safely if they are not driving at all, but also because it can be very convenient for a family to have an additional driver in the house – especially if they help with some of the driving responsibilities that the family has.

Some more modest character punishment that you might consider could be:

  • Suspension of computer privileges
  • Limits on cell phone usage
  • Making them stay home when normally they would allowed to go out
  • Limiting their TV watching
  • Ending access to video game systems or computer games
  • Making their curfew earlier in the evening
  • Having them do some sort of task as “punishment” – like clear brush, pick up trash on the side of the highway, or visit accident victims in the hospital

All of these consequences for bad driving won’t work for every teen, but if you can find the right combination for your teen then you stand a good chance of getting them to drive safely with a solid combination of rewards and punishments.

How To Set Up The System

If your teen meets your driving requirements then it is time to give them some rewards.  I recommend that you set some type of quota based on the number of hours driven rather on a number of days or just deciding to reward your teen whenever you feel like it.  The more experience your teen gets behind the wheel the more likely they are to drive safely when they are out of the house and out on their own.

I definitely recommend starting small.  If they can last the first 100 hours of driving and drive in such a way that they honor your family’s good driving practices then they can get one of the minor character rewards set up in your system.  Maybe you grant them some additional free time for them to do with what they will or you begin asking them to drive a younger sibling to one of their practices once a week.

100 hours certainly isn’t a hard and fast rule, but when you think about 100 hours can add up really fast, especially if you live far away from a lot of things in your life.  A 15 minute drive to school in the morning and then another 15 minutes home turns into 100 hours in 200 days.  That is approximately one school year – and that is only if they drive to school. With all the time they spend heading out to the movies or over to a friends house the time is really going to add up fast.  Before you know, after 3 months they are going to be ready for their first reward if they have driven well.

I also recommend that when you punish a teen it is because of repeat offenses.  So you might knock their curfew back 15 minutes if they perform 3 sudden stops over a 3 month period.  Or you might suspend their cell phone use for violating the speed limit two times over a 6 month period.  Feel free to get creative with your own set of rules – just make sure that you live up to the same standard as your teen!

With GPS, Teen Drivers Can Be Safe Drivers

Teen Driver

If you work your system correctly and you know your teen driver then you can get them to drive safely even if you aren’t in the car with them.  By installing GPS tracking device in their car and by setting up a quality, well-communicated reward and punishment system you can make safe driving something that everyone in your family is able to do – even if they are inexperienced and raging with hormones.  It is important to note that is not going to be the solution for every family.  Some GPS tracking systems can cost hundreds of dollars on the outset and still have a reoccuring subscription fee equivalent to a cell phone plan.  But for those families that can afford something like this it can empower you as a parent to help make your teen a safe driver.

GPS Tracking For Teens

For some reason, once our children hit their teenage years they can become rebellious and obstinate, rejecting the care and oversight of their parents. Not all teens fall into this trap of our culture, but even the most well behaved teen is going to get into some trouble now and then as they experiment with their new found freedom and grow into mature adults. We all make mistakes on our road to maturity.

GPS tracking can be a useful tool in the hands of a concerned or watchful parent – and it doesn’t have to be used only to monitor the behavioral issues a teenager may be expressing. These devices can help empower parents to give their teens even more freedom once they become aware of how careful, law abiding, and respectful their teenagers are. The information gathered by a device could also aid a parent in making an informed decision about about dangers presented by poor driving habits, skipping school, or the neighborhoods that life can take their kids into. Despite their larger size, high mental capabilities, and maturing bodies, teenagers are still children in many respects and parents still feel a degree of responsibility to keep their child safe.

If you have a teen with behavioral problems or you just like to know where your child is for safety’s sake then there are some real solutions for you and your family that can included GPS tracking. A solution’s success for your situation will undoubtedly depend on your own specific needs and desires, so be sure that you think about your solution carefully before purchasing a device. These things can be expensive and you don’t want to waste money on something when other relational steps could be taken to solve the problem.

In general, there are three main categories that any tracking device will fall into – car tracking, cell phone tracking, and covert tracking.

Tracking Your Teen’s Car With GPS


Learning to drive has long been a “coming of age” event for teens and driving represents a significant portion of their travel time. If your teen is anything like the one’s I’ve met then as soon as they are able they are hounding their parents for the keys at every opportunity.  They want to drive to and from school; to drive to their friends house; to go out to the movies.  They want to go out on dates. They even want you to pay for gas!

What they are essentially after is the freedom to do what they want when they want to.  This is a pretty normal thing for teenagers to experience since they are just at the beginning stages of becoming an adult and will try to emulate many of the things adults can do with their freedoms.

Many teens even have their own car these days; given to them by parents who enjoy the freedom that having a driving, mobile teen provides.  There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but it can create some challenges in keeping tabs on your kid if they are (secretly) rebellious.  In some ways, when a teen has a car it becomes much harder to know where they are, even if they are obedient and well behaved, and can create a safety nightmare for parents prone to worry.

How Does GPS Tracking A Car Work?

Tracking a car is fundamentally no different from tracking anything else with GPS, except that there are devices that have been manufactured and marketed specifically for this purpose. These devices are sometimes referred to as data pushers or real-time tracking devices. They work by gathering and calculating location data from the Global Positioning Satellites orbiting the earth and transmitting that data via radio or cellular frequencies. Your tracking provider takes this data, makes it look pretty, and makes it available to you from a (generally) web-based interface.

Your GPS device will be able to report the vector of the vehicle (both speed and direction). Many companies will also keep the data sent to it by the tracker and organize it into a useful “history” report. A driving “history” can be very helpful to a parent trying to verify a teen’s story about their whereabouts or driving practices. They won’t be able to so much as speed without you knowing it!  And that is a big deal when it comes to keeping them safe.

What Are The Limitations On Tracking A Teen By Car?

There are some limitations to this method of tracking.  The first is that it only works on teenagers who are legally eligible to drive.  In most states this is at the age of 16 1/2 while in others it can be as old as 18.  By the time they are 18 most teens should be sufficiently mature to make good decisions about how fast they drive, who they hang out with, and what activities they participate in without their parent’s watchful eye hanging over them.

However, that does not mean that a GPS tracking device installed in the car is not going to be useful – it just might be less of a parenting tool and more and an emergency tool.  It can still help you locate a stolen car.  It can still help you find the location of the car in case of a medical emergency.  It will still help you find the scene of a crash or a lost vehicle.  It just might not be used to make sure your teen isn’t speeding.

The second limitation is that it only works when your teen is using the car.  This is probably a much bigger limitation than most people realize.  Cars can easily be ditched by savvy teens or sinister assailants, negating the effectiveness of the tracker for the purpose that you intended.

Imagine for a second that the teen you want to track is aware that their car has a GPS unit installed in it.  They tell you that they are going over to a friend’s to hang out and watch some teen flick like Epic Movie.  However, what they tell you is not really what they are going to do.  They have really planned on going to a drinking party with this friend in the friend’s automobile, leaving the car with the GPS tracking unit safely at the friend’s house.

When you check up on your teen in your web-based account that provides real-time data on their whereabouts you find that the car is at the friend’s house.  You breathe a sigh of relief, but your teen is out making some bad peer-to-teen choice behaviors at the drinking party and you will be none the wiser.  That is where the next teen tracking device comes into play – the cell phone.

Tracking Your Teen’s Cell Phone


This is probably going to be the most useful and the most widely used method of using tracking a position of a teenager with GPS.  Unlike cars, cell phones appear to be in the hands of 99% of teenagers.  This is an unprecedented proliferation, but is not surprising given how useful they are for communicating between family members and for entertaining their users.

Most teens will use their phones to text friends, others will use it to take pictures, others to chat, and still others to browse the internet or update their Facebook page.  But now parents can use the same cell phones that are already in their teen’s hands to track their whereabouts and keep them safe.

Tapping Into To The Power of Cell Phones To Track Your Teen

Because cellar phones are everywhere, big wigs in the telecommunications industry decided that they wanted to compete with GPS companies like Garmin, TomTom, and Magellan in the navigation market with their cell phones.  They have since made some pretty significant inroads here because GPS technology and the radio positioning technology that cell phones use works off the same basic mathematical principle – trilateration.

Once that market was penetrated, cell phone providers realized that they could leverage the technology that they produced for GPS navigation for GPS tracking.  This birthed specialized phones designed specifically for kids that would enable parents and law enforcement to recover missing children by tracking their cell phone.

Many cell phone providers now offer plans that let you begin to track your child’s position information.  These planes also record vector information (speed and location), fulfilling one of the most important features of a car tracking device discussed above.  Cell phones are generally going to be with your child at all times, thus avoiding some of the limitations of car based tracking.  Cell phones have the added feature of allowing parents to verify that your child is with their phone simply by calling them up – their voice on the other end of the line is the proof.

Another great benefit is that your teen has every incentive to keep their cell phone charged and ready for use – they want to use it to talk to their friends!  This means you won’t have to change the tracking device’s battery because your teenager has a very large incentive to do it for you.  Its a win-win for both of you.

Cell Phone Tracking Limitations

Despite cell phone tracking’s relative superiority over car based tracking there are still some serious limitations to tracking your child in this fashion.  The first is that in some circumstances – like abduction – your child is probably going to get their cell phone taken away by their abductor.  This is probably the most dire of situations where you would want the tracking device to work perfectly, but because of the knowledge that cell phones can be used by the authorities to locate individuals it is probably going to be the first thing searched for and gotten ride of by an assailant.

The other limitation is that cell phones do not always receive signals from cell towers.  This is particularly problematic in remote areas where cell phone penetration is less established.  If a phone is unable to make a connection to its network then any location data gathered by the phone cannot be communicated to you, the parent. The data may be still be stored on the phone, but it does not do you any good until you can get your hands on it.

In the end though, the cell phone is probably the cheapest, easiest, and most reliable of all the tracking options available to parents on the market today.  It should definitely be a strong contender in your quest to use GPS tracking for your teen.

Tracking Your Teen With Covert GPS


The last method I am aware of is using more covert methods of tracking your teen.  This is different than tracking the car they use or utilizing their cell phone to keep tabs on them.  While you may track them in these ways without them knowing (i.e. in a covert way) I like to think of covert tracking as something rather different.

It is more spy-like in my mind and has more to do with sticking a GPS tracker in a shoe, or a bag, or an iPod.  These types of trackers are designed specifically to avoid detection – by the person who the device is tracking or by someone who would steal the asset or abduct the assets bearer.

Covert GPS devices are small, compact, battery operated, and extremely powerful.

What Types of Covert GPS Are Available?

You’d be surprised at the large number of GPS tracking devices that fall into this category.  They can range from stuffed animals to watches to shoes to jackets.   Almost anything a teenager carries can be turned into a set of watchful eyes.

When thinking about where you want to install a covert device it is important that you pick items that your teen uses every day, like shoes or a winter jacket, since these devices will have the highest probability of staying on your child no matter what happens to them.

Why Choose Covert GPS Tracking For Teens?

The only reason to go with covert devices is if your teenager they are at high risk for abduction and you want to be able to locate them quickly and efficiently.  This is the situation when cell phones simply won’t do since they will be quickly destroyed by attackers.

Another good reason to use covert devices is that they can go without detection for longer periods of time – but they do suffer from battery life limitations so be careful how you use them.  The last thing you want to do it so get caught while you change the tracker’s battery!

Should I Be Secret Or Open About Tracking My Teen?

Now that we have discussed some of the options that can help you keep track of your teen it is really important that we evaluate any moral problems with using GPS tracking on a teenager.  Is it wrong to track them at all?  If I think it is right, do I need to tell them that I am doing it or can I ‘keep it secret?’

I think that each person is going to end up answering this question differently, but my take on it is this – it is okay to track a teen without their knowledge.  This is also my answer when thinking about tracking a child.  It is an okay and acceptable practice given certain circumstances.

My reasons for this is threefold:

  1. Parents have a responsibility to ensure the safety of their child.  It is even my opinion that parents are supposed to protect their children even if the child expresses a desire not to be protected.  If a teen is going to engage in activity that directly affects their safety – such as speeding, drinking, doing drugs, having sex before marriage – then it is a parents obligation to take measures that help them ensure their teenager’s safety.
  2. Teens are still under the care of their parents.  The main source of the parents obligation to their teen is that the teen still lives under the care and provision of the parent.  If the teen was self-sufficient I could definitely see an argument for restricting a parents right to know the location of a child at all times.  However, this is often not the case for children between the ages of 13 and 18 – and is often not even the case for kids between 18 and 22.  They often still rely heavily on their parents for financial and moral support.
  3. Many teens do not own their cell phones and cars.  At the very least you have to give parents the right to track their assets, right?  The car is the property of the parents so they should know where it is and how it is being driven.  The cell phone is paid for and provided by the parents, so they have a stake in where it is and how it is treated.  The fact that they are also able to track their teen’s location is merely a consequence of the teen using something that the parent owns.  If they want to avoid this type of tracking then they should buy their own phone and car.

With all that said, I don’t think it is always in the parent’s or the teen’s best interest to keep the GPS tracking a secret.  In many, many instances it will work out much better for both parties if the device is clearly explained and accounted for.  Tracking teen with GPS is just a tool in the hands of parents and teenagers to make life safer for everyone – communication should always be clear and honest where appropriate.  Without that, no amount of GPS tracking is going to do teens or parents any good.