Tag: gps tracking devices

Protect Rental Properties With GPS Tracking Devices

When you own a rental property in a remote location you need to find a way to safe guard your investment, especially if you have high value furnishings on your property.  Some owners have turned to installing GPS tracking devices on high value items, such as flat screen TVs, to help reduce the number of thefts as well as to help the police track down their stolen property.

These owners, located in Sevier County, a county in Tennessee which is home to the famous Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, came up with the idea to install the GPS trackers after a rash of break-ins swept the county.  One owner reported having over 5% of all his holding broken into over a two or three month period.  Another described having to deal with a break-in every two to three weeks.  The object of these burglaries were flat screen TVs and plasma TVs that were put inside these vacation rentals for use by guests.  Unfortunately, the criminal element realized this and capitalized on the secluded nature of these properties to make off with thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from many cabins scattered across the mountainous terrain.

The problem simply does not end with a stolen TV.  In order to get inside the rental the thief must do considerable damage to the property by busting a window or damaging a door.  This can cost owners $100s or even $1000s in damages – and that is on top of the money that needs to be spent to replace the stolen TV!

There is a relatively low cost solution to these problems: install a real time GPS tracking device onto the items likely to be stolen.  This will help you recover stolen property, reduce the number of thefts on your property, and help you reduce your insurance rates depending on your insurance provider.

GPS Tracking Devices For Theft Recovery

Theft recovery is a well established use of GPS tracking devices.  For this type of tracking you are going to want a device that is going to be able to transmit the coordinates in real time when asked to.  You are not going to want a device that tracks on a continuous basis.  The reason for this is that this type of real time GPS tracking device is going to run out of batteries very quickly and need to have them replaced on a regular basis.  This is fine if you only have 4 or five properties that are all right next to each other, but when you have a 100 or more properties that are spread out over a significant amount of space it would become a  full time job just to make sure all the trackers had enough battery power.

Instead, you are going to want to get a device that only becomes “active” once it is moved.  There are many different models that have this feature so you should have plenty to choose from.  Once the device has been activated it will alert you to its movements and will either send you periodic updates on its position or it will allow you to send the device SMS messages asking for a new position to be sent to your mobile phone.  Once you are certain your device is on the move you can then send the information along to the police who can then arrest the individual and put them being bars.

The following video is a news story that is featured in our GPS tracking videos section that highlights how these devices can be used:

GPS Tracking Devices For Criminal Elimination

The thing about installing a tracker is that you not only recover your stolen property but you also catch a criminal and put them behind bars.  Theoretically, this will lead to a reduction in the number of crimes since the number of people actually engaging in this illegal activity are going to be unable to do it from behind bars.  There is a similar phenomena in GPS tracking bait cars used by police where some cities have seen dramatic reductions in the number of car thefts as the bait cars have seriously cut into the criminal element in the cities.

In addition to eliminating know criminals, it also creates a atmosphere where this type of theft is discouraged.  Remote cabins seem like the perfect place to perform thefts, but when the whole area knows that cabin owners employ remote GPS trackers then they will think twice about doing something stupid on your property.  This means that GPS tracking units promote less crime now and less crime in the future – a win-win-win for the community, law enforcement, and you.

GPS Tracking Devices For Reduced Insurance Premiums

Insurers like to be safe.  If they think that ensuring your property is risky they will end up charging you more for your insurance then you probably want them to.  Also, having regular break ins will also increase your premium, costing you thousands over the course of your policy.  A good way to combat this increased cost is to start using real time tracking devices.  As was mentioned above, this will help reduce the number of break ins and will and help you recover your property which will help keep premiums low. But you also might be able to get a discount with your insurer if they know that you are using a GPS tracking device in your rental property.  Saving money is always great, so why not ask?

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Protecting your rental properties with GPS tracking devices makes a lot of sense for individuals or companies that are in a region that has a particularly high break in rate.  These devices are becoming increasingly available and are fairly inexpensive for those that are just looking for a real time tracking device that will become “active” upon movement.

How To Evaluate a GPS Tracking Device

There is a sea of choices when it comes to GPS tracking devices today.  You have a wide range of tracking manufacturers to choose from as well as a great many providers to sift through in your search for the tracking system that is best going to fit your particular needs. This task can seem a little daunting to someone just starting out in the world of GPS powered tracking, but if you let a few controlling principles guide you in your decisions then you should be able to easily navigate this sea until you have found port with GPS tracking system that works out best for you and your needs.

One of the main problems that people suffer from is an abundance of choice. While we think we like to keep our options open, the human mind can only filter and process so much information at any given time. If we simply stare at the 20-50 different GPS tracking devices that exist on the market then we are going to get nowhere fast. We will despair of finding a device and either choose a suboptimal tracker or not even make a purchase all together. I hope that was follows is a series of useful filters through which you can sift through the many choices available to you in your quest to evaluate the GPS tracking device that is best for you:

Determine if you need real time tracking or if you are content with data logging. This is mainly going to depend on the type of tracking that you want your device to do for you and will generally be a very person specific question. Some applications just do better with a real time tracker while others do just fine with a data logger. I like to think of it this way, if you need to know information as it happens then you will want a real time tracking device. If you are fine with figuring out where something has been after the fact, then a data logger is going to meet your needs just fine. Fortunately, there are personal GPS tracking devices that fall into both camps. It is also often the case that a tracking provider will provide both data logging and real time devices for their customers to purchase.

Choose a tracking device with the appropriate battery life.  After deciding which style of tracker you are purchasing it is time to begin considering the battery life of your device. As I am sure we all know, most electronic devices are limited by their power supply or battery life. If they have week batteries then it doesn’t matter how great the device is, we simply can’t use it for that long or else the battery will run out. If we had to speak in general terms, most data loggers will have a longer battery life than a real time GPS tracking device. This is mainly because real time trackers have to communicate their information via a cell phone modem which is an extra drain on the device’s power supply. Some real time trackers overcome this problem by hardwiring the device to a power supply. This is particularly common in GPS vehicle tracking devices that are used in commercial applications. While this is also possible for other uses, like tracking a teen’s car or possibly even tracking, it is most often used for fleet vehicle tracking.

Choose a a GPS tracking device that is going to be the appropriate size for your proposed tracking purpose. If you are planning on doing any sort of covert GPS vehicle tracking then you really need to think about the size of the device. Something that is small and easily attached to or hidden under your target is a top priority since covert tracking only really works as long as it goes undetected. Once the target has found the device they will be able to remove it or change their behavior, resulting in skewed results. Generally speaking, you are going to want a portable GPS tracking device. This will allow you to move it various locations as the need arises and even track multiple targets over a short period of time. If the device is not portable then will lose some of the tracking flexibility that you might be looking for.

Find out if the GPS tracking software run by your company is going to meet your needs. As you might suspect, there is a host of different GPS tracking software packages that really cater to different tracking functions. For example, a child GPS tracking device is not going to have the same user interface or software package as a GPS car tracking device. They are used for completely different purposes by different types of people. They most certainly gather their information the same way (via GPS satellites and a process called trilateration), but what they do with this information and how they present it to their customers can sometimes be radically different.

The reasons for this are pretty obvious. The information a parent might want to gather from their child GPS tracking device is going to center around the location of their child. Have they stayed within their specified GeoFence? Where were they at 3:30 PM today when they were supposed to be home from school? Did they get to soccer practice on time? These are the types of questions that a parent is going to want to know and this is the information that GPS trackign software geared for child tracking devices is going to be able to provide.

Similarly, GPS car tracking devices have their own set of metrics that need to be reported and they will have software that provides that to end users. Things like vehicle speed, lane position, and past locations are all wanted by car tracking users.  This is obviously different information than what the child tracking folks want and will therefore result in a different type of tracking software.

Even among different providers of the same type of tracking service you will get different GPS tracking software packages and features. Be sure to check out screen shots of the tracking system and see if they have a live demo for you to explore. There is nothing more important than getting a hands on feel for how the software will actually work and how you will interact with the information that your device will communicate.

Finally, consider all the costs involved with your new purchase. Real time tracking devices generally cost more up front and have a reoccurring subscription that you have to maintain if you are going to continue to use the device. This subscription generally costs just as much as a cell phone plan (around $40) if you want to have true real time tracking. Data loggers, on the other hand, do not really have any reoccurring costs and they generally are significantly cheaper than real time trackers. While they don’t have a lot of the same cool features that a real time GPS tracking device might have, they are just as accurate and just as useful for certain tracking applications.

    In the final analysis, choosing the right GPS tracking device for you is going to be very situational. What might work for one person is not going to work for another. But if you follow these simple steps and use them as a framework through which to evaluate your GPS tracking purchase you should come out on the other side with a useful tracking device that fits your particular need for that particular situation.

    Small GPS Tracking Chips

    I know this may be old news to some of the GPS enthusiasts of the world, but there is this company from New Zealand that is making some really ridiculously small GPS tracking chips – and I mean ridiculously small.  The company’s name is Rakon, and they make GPS chips for all sorts of things, but most of their chips are geared toward GPS cell phone market.  The fact that these chips are so small is important for all those in the GPS tracking community for several different reasons, the least of which is that small GPS chips are freakin’ cool.  The others mainly have to do with the future of GPS tracking.

    But before we get into all the cool future stuff, let’s understand a little bit about the GPS chips that Rankon is putting out there.  These are powerful chips that function at some of the highest levels in the consumer grade GPS tracking products.  They do an excellent job at handling weak signal and dynamic environments, enabling maximum GPS performance when you need it most.  Their chips work indoor and outdoors, under tree canopies or in canyons, on country roads or beneath sky scrappers.  And the best part about these chips is that they are really small.  One GPS chip comes in at 2.5 mm x 2.0 mm – yeah, that is right, millimeters.  That is 0.09843 inches x 0.07874 inches for all those who live in countries that still use the backword inefficient imperial system.

    Freakishly Small GPS Tracking ChipNeedless to say, when a cell phone company wants a small GPS tracking chip to install in their cell phone they are going to consider the folks at Rankon.

    But it is pretty obvious that people who want to create GPS tracking cell phones are going to look for a small GPS chip. They want to conserve space inside their phone so that they can make is as slim and sleek as possible. Consumers want something that is going to be easy to use – meaning that it is lightweight but sturdy, small but not too small, powerful but not power hungry, and full of features (like GPS navigation and GPS tracking) but not too hard to use – and by giving them a small chip to use in the phone a company like Rankon is empowering phone creators to dream big with their phone designs.

    This is the cool factor of this technology right now, but there is a lot of potential upside to having really small GPS chips for the future. One is that this technology can be used to help people keep track of their pets. Small GPS tracking chips for dogs could be implanted somewhere under the skin on the back of the dog and if coupled with the right technology this could provide real time GPS tracking of the pet’s whereabouts on a 24/7 basis.

    The extra technology that you would need to generate to make something like this isn’t too hard to dream up. You would just need an ability to communicate wirelessly with a cell phone tower. This is technology that is already being made smaller and smaller. Today there are watches, which are much smaller than cell phones, that have the ability to make phone calls over the wireless networks that dot the countrysides of the world. I can only see this technology getting smaller and smaller too until one day it fits within a 2.5 mm x 2 mm space.

    The next technology that would be needed will be some sort of power supply that is renewable and persistent. That way the small GPS tracking chip and the cell phone transmission component could be in constant use – giving it its 24/7 real time tracking capabilities. For this, I can think of two solutions. The first is to make this power source solar – so during the day the device works off the sun and then during the night is runs off stored power from during the day. This is probably a less than ideal solution since batteries never seem to have an infinite life cycle – heck, some batteries can’t even last a few months let alone 10-14 years that a dog is alive. The second solution is much better but much harder as far as I know – it is to harness the heat produced by the dog and use it to power the two devices.

    This would be an incredible solution and would allow for tracking of all sorts of animal life. You could use it in a dog, but you could also tag all warm blooded animals with this type of GPS tracking chip and cell phone device combination in order to get huge amounts of position information for use in scientific research. Our ability to understand the movements of our companions here on this earth would grow at an incredibly pace.

    This type of technology would also make these GPS tracking chips for children too. In fact, it would probably enable a future society to be able to know the exact location of every person in the world at the exact same time! If I wanted to get all 1984-esque, if there was a small microphone on the cell phone component then you would know where everyone in the world was and what they were talking about at any given moment. Now that would be something.

    So in one way it is really cool that GPS tracking chips keep getting smaller and smaller, but in another way it is really creepy and a little unnerving. I know that technology is essentially amoral, but people sure as hell aren’t and I would hate to see what people would end up doing with this type of GPS tracking.

    When To Use GPS Tracking Sticks

    GPS tracking sticks are extremely small and portable GPS tracking devices.  They resemble a USB memory sticks in appearance and generally have a male USB connection built into the device.  These devices are data loggers, meaning that they passively record their GPS coordinates at set intervals and store the data on the device’s memory.  In order for the owner of the device to be able to access this information they need to recover the tracking stick and download its contents onto their computer.

    As I am sure you have already inferred, these devices are made for certain types of GPS tracking.  These devices excel at helping you know where someone or something has been and are very good at being concealed discretely because of their size.  It works great for a runner who wants to accurately measure their daily runs and cannot afford a more expensive GPS running watch.  Parents can use it to track a child or a teenager to make sure they have been where they say they have been.  These devices can also be used by different type of R/C hobbyists who would like to know things like the height traveled by a rocket or plane, or the distance traveled by their car or boat.  This device can even be used by employers to make sure that employees are making appropriate use of company property.

    In essences, these work great for tracking anything that you don’t need to know its position right away.  If you can track it and then get it later, a GPS tracking stick can be a cheap alternative.

    But these sticks are certainly not going to be very useful in some types of tracking applications.  Here is a quick list of some of the types of tracking this device is NOT really that good for:

    • GPS fleet tracking – Fleets need to have real time information on the location of their fleet if they are going to be able to route vehicles and monitor their activity efficiently.  Getting all the data after the fact is not going to provide the performance that a business in this situation is going to require.
    • Friend tracking – There are a lot of friend tracking application for the cell phone, many of them free, but you can’t run any of them on a GPS tracking stick.  You are certainly able to tell where a friend has been with one of these devices.  This, however, does not help you when you want to see which one of your friends is at the same mall as you or if they are at the same party.
    • Teen driver tracking (in some applications) – Some parents are going to want to be able to check on the status of their teen in real time.  A tracking stick will not let you do this.  It will help you monitor your teen while they drive the car and give you the tools you need to enforce your family driving rules – you just can’t do it in real time.
    • Real time spouse tracking – If you are interested in following your cheating spouse to the scene of the cheat then you don’t want to use a tracking stick.  GPS tracking cell phones would work great in this application, just not tracking sticks.
    • Property recovery GPS – If you want to recover stolen property then a data logger is definitely not the GPS tracking device that you want to go with.  While the property is in the hands of the thief there is no way for you to access the GPS information being gathered by the device – making it useless as a property recovery GPS.

    As you can see, GPS tracking sticks are useful and powerful data loggers and should not be used for real time tracking.  As far as GPS tracking devices go, tracking sticks are among the smallest and most easily concealed of all the trackers.  They take up just a few inches and could easily be mistaken for a USB memory stick if they were to be “discovered” while being employed as a covert tracking device.  If you don’t need immediate access to your tracking data and need a small device that will get you solid GPS data then a GPS tracking stick is certainly going to meet your needs.

    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.

    GPS Car Tracking, GPS Blockers, and Stalkers

    There is more news coming out of Wisconsin related to the world of GPS tracking.  A La Crosse man was convicted of stalking his estranged wife with a GPS tracking device installed in her car.  Apparently, the man was just keeping tabs on her because of some custody issues that they were working out.  If a police complaint about the convict is true, he used the GPS device to track his wife as far as Iowa, harassing his her with his presence.

    He entered an Alford plea to the charge, which means he thinks he is ‘Not Guilty’ but still thinks a jury will convict him, and will suffer two years of probation and six months of local confinement – meaning that the person who once used GPS tracking to stalk will now have his location tracked with GPS.  How ironic.

    But this particular case is not of necessarily of interest because of this irony but because of two other things that have happened in the past couple of  months.  The first is that police in Wisconsin can GPS track cars without warrants according to a Wisconsin VI District Court of Appeals decision issued in March of 2009.  This means that police can place a tracking device on any person’s vehicle that they feel like could be a suspect in a case without any warrant.  If they thought that you were somehow a part of the mafia they could place one in your vehicle without you knowing and expect you to like it.

    What makes this interesting is that apparently this same ability doesn’t transfer over to private citizens, or at least private citizens with restraining orders on them.  This is great news for all of us that might fear a neighbour or complete stranger might be stalking us and be well within their rights.  Apparently, only the police can stalk people without getting in trouble with the police …

    But this leads to a related thing that is kind of interesting about this whole story – that GPS tracking blockers can be pretty useful devices.  If you are having someone stalking you with a real-time tracking device installed in your car then there is no better way of getting them off your back than installing one of these devices (Update 4/16/2012:  GPS jammers are illegal and should not be used).  This isn’t something that most people are going to need and certainly isn’t something I would recommend having just in case – but if you are being harassed or stalked by someone with even the littlest bit of technical knowhow or if they seem to be showing up in places they shouldn’t know about then getting a GPS tracking blocker may be a good, safe thing to do.

    The other thing that made this particularly interesting is just how widely available GPS tracking is.  Even a stalkers in Wisconsin can get their hands on it.  Just a few years ago GPS navigation units were over $500 – well outside the range of most people both then and now.  Today, however, you can make your own real-time tracking device for $40 upfront and a $30 monthly fee with a cell phone and some free GPS tracking software.  These types of tracking devices are very easy to set up and take very little skill to do.

    But even without cheating and using a cell phone, some covert GPS tracking devices are fairly reasonably priced these days.  An effective real-time tracking device can be purchased for well under $200, with some GPS loggers coming in at under $100.  A GPS logger isn’t going to need a monthly subscription either, making it very easy to purchase and use extensively (but probably not by a stalker – so you are probably going to be good).

    GPS is just going to become more prevelant as the years roll on and we are going to have to deal with GPS tracking on a much higher level than ever before.  I can forsee in the future a time when letting someone GPS track your location is a sign that you are in a serious relationship with them, much like giving them acess to your email account might be today.  Teens will track their boyfriends and girlfriends for the one day that they are a couple, only having to find a way to cleanly break such intimate knowledge.  This may seem funny now, but in five years I really think that this is going to be a reality.

    It may seem a little scary, but GPS tracking is going to be the norm rather than the exception.

    New York Requires Warrant To GPS Track Suspects

    If you were one of the people scared out of your mind that some states like Wisconsin allow warrantless GPS tracking of cars then you can breath a sigh of relief in knowing that not all the courts in our nation agree.  New York, in a recent court decision, ruled that police in the state must have a warrant when placing a GPS tracking device on a suspects car – joining Washington and Oregon who already have rulings in places ensuring this.

    The New York court differed from the Wisconsin one in one major way – the New York court seemed to think that GPS tracking was in fact different from physical surveillance or other technological forms of tracking (like a radio frequency emitter).  The court wrote:

    Here, we are not presented with the use of a mere beeper to facilitate visual surveillance during a single trip. GPS is a vastly different and exponentially more sophisticated and powerful technology that is easily and cheaply deployed and has virtually unlimited and remarkably precise tracking capability. […]  Constant, relentless tracking of anything is now not merely possible but entirely practicable …. GPS is not a mere enhancement of human sensory capacity, it facilitates a new technological perception of the world in which the situation of any object may be followed and exhaustively recorded over …  a practically unlimited period. The potential for a similar capture of information or “seeing” by law enforcement would require, at a minimum, millions of additional police officers and cameras on every street lamp.

    The majority opinion of the court is trying to make a distinction between the information gathered from physical surveillance of technologically assisted surveillance (the beeper from the 1983 Wisconsin case used as precedent in both this case the more recent Wisconsin case) and that made possible by a GPS tracking device.  The main thrust seems to be that in order to gather similar information on an individual you would need “millions of additional police.”

    The court then goes on to discuss the privacy issues involved in GPS tracking cases:

    One need only consider what the police may learn, practically effortlessly, from planting a single device. The whole of a person’s progress through the world, into both public and private spatial spheres, can be charted and recorded over lengthy periods …. Disclosed in the data retrieved from the transmitting unit, nearly instantaneously with the press of a button on the highly portable receiving unit, will be trips the indisputably private nature of which takes little imagination to conjure: trips to the psychiatrist, the plastic surgeon, the abortion clinic, the AIDS treatment center, the strip club, the criminal defense attorney, the by-the-hour motel, the union meeting, the mosque, synagogue or church, the gay bar and on and on. What the technology yields and records …  is a highly detailed profile … of where we go,  … of our associations — political, religious, amicable and amorous, to name only a few — and of the pattern of our professional and avocational pursuits. When multiple GPS devices are utilized, even more precisely resolved inferences about our activities are possible. And … it will be possible to tell from … who we are and are not with, when we are and are not with them, and what we do and do not carry on our persons — to mention just a few of the highly feasible empirical configurations.

    This judgment reads to me that the court made its decision to deny warrantless GPS tracking because it would give the police a lot of information about a suspects activities and would be much, much cheaper than putting a “tail” on the suspect.

    Personally, I can’t seem to make myself agree with the courts rulings.  I am not a lawyer nor am I trained in the law, but it seems to me like the information gather by a GPS tracking device attached to a car could be gather by a physical tail on a suspect – but just at a much greater cost.

    A police officer could tell if a person drove their car to a mosque, or a church, or a bar, or a friends house, or to work, or to a soccer game, or to their child’s recital.  All this information would be easily accessible to any person capable of seeing and all of it would be occurring in public space – where people have no fundamental right to privacy.

    Granted, GPS tracking a cell phone could provide police with a much larger amount of information that would track a person’s movement’s within completely private places – such as a doctors office, or a church building, or a private club – so perhaps the court’s decision is taking these into consideration as well.

    However, I am concerned with the way their ruling could affect the police’s ability to easily and precisely put a tail on a suspects vehicle. GPS tracking for cars will only really track the movements of an individual’s car in public places – something that seems very reasonable for the police to be able to track with GPS.  It is much more cost effective and gives them an opportunity to utilize their skilled officers in other tasks.

    In the end, whether or not GPS tracking for cars will require a warrant or not is going to be decided in cases like this all over the country by Appellate courts who are going to differ on what the nature of GPS tracking is and what that means for a person’s 4th Amendment rights.

    Wisconsin Allows Warrantless GPS Tracking of Cars

    In a decision filed on Mar 7, 2009, the Wisconsin VI District Court of Appeals made a ruling that has interesting implications for GPS tracking’s place in society and law enforcement.  In the case in question, State of Wisconsin v. Michael A. Sveum, the defendant (Michael Sveum) was arguing that the GPS tracking device installed on his car by the police was in violation of his 4th Amendment right of protection from unreasonable searches and seizures.  The police claim that they did not violate Sveum’s 4th Amendment rights.

    The crux of the issue here is summarized nicely by the court in their written decision, authored by Judge Paul Lundsten:

    Michael Sveum challenges his aggravated stalking conviction. At Sveum’s jury trial, the prosecution presented detailed tracking information about the movements of Sveum’s car obtained from a Global Positioning System tracking device (GPS device) that police secretly attached to his car. Sveum argues that the police obtained this tracking information in violation of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The State responds that no Fourth Amendment search or seizure occurs when police attach a GPS device to the outside of a vehicle while it is in a place accessible to the public and then use that device to track the vehicle while it is in public view.  We agree with the State.

    The court’s decision has some interesting implications.  What the court essentially did in ruling in favor of the state in this appeal is open up the public to warrantless GPS tracking of a suspects car, truck, or van.

    This has caused a lot of buzz, with fear mongers taking up the call of state oppression and fears that their rights of privacy are being violated unduly.  I think a lot of this talk is not constructive and does little to actaully help protect citizen’s privacy from unreasonable searches and seizures.

    When you sit down and think about it logically, the court’s decision makes a lot of sense.  GPS tracking is a lot like physical surveillance, except that you don’t have to spend tax payer’s money on sitting a person outside a suspects home for hours on end.  According to one news report, the GPS tracking for cars was used for 5 weeks to monitor Sveum’s activity. How much would it have cost to put a tail on a suspect day and night, 7 days a week, for five weeks?  A lot of money.

    After the 5 weeks of tracking was up, the device was retrieved from the car and then processed by police.  The location information that they uncovered helped them get a warrant to search Sveum’s car and home, the resulting evidence discovered was enough for a jury to convict the defendant of aggravated stalking.

    If you think about it, the information gathered from the GPS tracking device installed on the car was exactly the same as that that could be gathered from physical observation.  Cars travel in public places and can be easily view by authorities with a desire to do so.  Such tailing is not a violation of a person’s 4th Amendment right and so the court reasoned that the GPS tracking was permissible.

    It also reasoned that since tailing a suspect can be done without a warrant (since their activity is within the public sphere) then the GPS tracking of a car can also be done without a warrant.

    Now in the Sveum case there was a warrant that let the police use the GPS tracking device, but the language of the court’s ruling indicated that this warrant was unnecessary.  Again, the language of the court:

    Sveum challenges the admission of GPS tracking information showing the movements of his car. He argues that the warrant authorizing police to place the GPS device on his car was overly broad. The State responds that the warrant was unnecessary because no Fourth Amendment search or seizure occurred. In reply, Sveum implicitly concedes that placing the GPS device on his car and using it to monitor public travel does not implicate the Fourth Amendment. He contends, however, that because the GPS device permitted the police to monitor the location of his car while it was in his garage and in his employer’s garage, places out of public view, all of the information obtained from the GPS device should have been suppressed. Because we agree with the State that no Fourth Amendment search or seizure occurred, we do not address Sveum’s warrant argument.

    Clear as crystal – the police, at least in Wisconsin, do not need to have a search warrant to place a GPS tracking device on your car.  They can do it for any reason and for presumably any purpose – as long as their resources allow it.

    If you want to read the full text of the court’s decision you can do so here: State v. Michael A. Sveum

    Update: May 20, 2009

    According to the New York Court of Appeals, police inside New York must have a warrant when when using GPS tracking on a suspects car.  This is directly opposite of what the Wisconsin court ruled just a few weeks ago.  This difference in ruling highlights some of the current issues with the use of new technology in ever expanding areas of life.  Readers old enough to remember the stir that wire tapping raised when it was first introduced will see some similarities between that and GPS tracking.  If you want to learn more about this case and their ruling,check out our post New York Requires Warrant To GPS Track Suspects

    Do you think that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Wisconsin’s ability to freely use GPS tracking on individuals?  Why or why not?

    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.

    Kids GPS Phone: A Brief Introduction

    We all know cell phones are here to stay. You can’t walk 10 feet in any public place without seeing some parent, child, or teen talking on their cell phone. You can even go to ‘poor’ countries and find that many people have access to this type of wireless communication. But have you ever heard of a kids GPS phone that is designed specifically to help parents keep tabs on their children?

    A few years ago, cellular phone companies found out that busy parents needed a solution to their business problem. With the pressures of work and the need to get things done around the house, get kids to their activities, make dinner, and be sure that they have money for their future parents realized that they weren’t giving their children the time that they deserved. As a result of this they developed types of cell phones that have been labeled ‘kid phones’ for the functionality made specific for children of a young age.

    Kids GPS Cell PhoneThese phones generally have certain features that make them particularly useful for small children.  One of them is that they often have the regular number pad removed.  This is replaced by a speed dial pad.  This helps your child on two levels:

    1. They do not have to memorize telephone numbers at all. While most children are very good at memorization as early as the age of 4, so you are not having them memorize your cell phone number because they are not able too. But in the heat of an emergency a child’s brain might not be able to hand the recalling the seven digits that make up your phone number. By reducing it to a simple speed dial you are giving your child’s mind the ability to remember that “One equals Mommy” or that “The red button equals the police man.”
    2. By keeping your child’s phone to the simple speed dial options you reduce the risk of them using the cellular device for non-necessary reasons. You don’t your child to have access to all the internet, text messaging, and camera features that a regular cell phone might have. They simply don’t need all of that. You want them to be able to give you call in case of an emergency or if they need to be picked up from school. That is all.

    The speed dial feature on kids phone seems to be the focal point of most the phone design.  The screens are often just big enough to display who you are calling and if the call is connecting or not.  Then there is the are the ‘send’ and ‘end’ buttons.  These are generally large and obvious for your child.

    For many years these types of devices have been being utilized by parents to help ‘keep in touch’ with their children while parents go about their busy lives.  During this same period of time, we have also seen an explosion in GPS technology in consumer electronics.  The trickle down effect has finally made its way into cell phones and specifically created a new class of phone: the kids GPS phone.

    Understanding Kids GPS Phones

    Cell phones and GPS technology are very similar in nature.  With GPS, a signal containing relevant position information is transmitted from a satellite in geosynchronous orbit. As more and more signals reach a GPS receiver, the computer inside the device is able to calculate the position of the receiver using the information provided by the satellites and a mathematical process called trilateration. (For more information see our article on how GPS tracking watches work.)

    Cell phones are very similar. They receive signals from cell towers that often dot the urban landscape in a type honeycomb pattern. These signals tell the cell phone that they are in service, how strong that cellular service is (i.e. how many ‘bars’ do you have?), and whether or not you are accepting calls at the moment (is the phone on or off?). When you talk with your phone, it is really acting like a very complex walkie-talkie where what you hear is being transmitted to you on one channel while what you say is being broadcast over another channel.

    One interesting side effect that this has is that phones can be used as a tracking device even if they don’t have GPS enabled. This is because the cell towers can measure how long it takes to get a response back from your cell phone between the different towers in your area. Once it has this information, it can use it in conjunction with the known position of all the cell towers to find your general location. Now this is probably not as accurate as a GPS phone, but it is still pretty accurate.

    This similarity between the workings of GPS and cell phones made them obvious candidates for integration into a single device: thus the GPS phone was born.  The most common application of this type of phone is found in the ubiquitously necessary navigation system.  Turn by turn direction and road maps seem to be all the rave these days and cell phone companies saw a market that they wanted to tap into.  This was definitely the first use of GPS in cell phones.  (Though it is important to note that not all phones with navigation capabilities have GPS enabled on them – the simply might have it available because of the location information available from cell towers.)

    Eventually some executive or engineer decided to implement the GPS feature on the kids phones that they were already developing.  Perhaps it could be a good way to upsell some parents and get them to subscribe to more services while offering them an improved experience and more functionality.  Either way, parents might want it and cell phone providers were going to give them kids GPS phones.

    These devices take advantage of both the cell phone and GPS technology that their small plastic cases contain.   Unlike a kids GPS tracking watch, kids GPS phones are able to penetrate areas that can often be hidden from the watchful eye of the Global Positioning Satellites orbiting overhead.  These areas often have some type of obstructed view of the sky overhead – such as a heavily wooded area or building – but can have access to a cell signal.  While the location information is significantly less accurate when based on information provided from the cell portion of the kids GPS cell phone, it is still better than nothing all.

    Another key feature of these GPS devices is that they are also cell phones.  While some GPS watches for children also have this capability as well, many child locators do not.  There is something powerful in knowing that you can reach out and call your child whenever you are concerned about their whereabouts or safety.  It is also nice to know that they can turn around and call you as well if ever they are worried or concerned.  You are never more than a phone call away.

    Plans and prices for the kids GPS cell phone are fairly reasonable if you are serious about having this type of capability in something that you already have your child using anyway.  You probably will not have to use it very often (most parents never need to), but if you feel like it will give you some peace of mind and supplement the safety of your family there is certainly some quality providers out there who can provide a kids GPS phone to meet your needs.

    Parents also have the option of leveraging current cell phones and turning them into tracking devices for free. Just download one of the many cell phone trackers out on the market and you can instantly turn a normal cell phone into a power tracking device. Just be sure that you have the data plan to cover it since this type of activity can be data heavy. But if you are already paying for a data plan why not make the most of it and install a tracker on your kids cell phone?

    Kids GPS Tracking Devices and School

    GPS tracking devices have many applications in today’s society.  We use them to help us better manage massive fleets (like municipal bus systems and tractor trailers), packages and other assets, as well as to track our children.  GPS tracking devices are even beginning to make their way into the world of public schools.

    Bryan Adams High School is currently testing out a pilot program to help keep students in school and off the streets through the use of a GPS tracking device. Faced with a truancy rate in excess of 15% the school was loosing many of its kids and the money associated with their attendance. Strapped for a solution to this problem the Dallas Independent School District’s (Dallas ISD), which has the seventh worst dropout rate among large school districts according to America’s Promise Alliance, has turned to GPS tracking devices to get the children into class.

    These GPS devices, more like the devices used to monitor an individual on house arrest than a GPS tracking watch, were given to 6 students of the more than 300 who were sent to truancy court over the past year. The project cost the district $26,000, with the bulk of the money going to a case worker assigned to monitor and assist the children’s activities and to provide support to the families in keeping their child in school. This method is much more cost effective for the state when compared to detaining the chronically truant in a juvenile detention facility. Giving them a kids GPS can also provide some much need structure to a student’s life, increasing their ability to function in society.

    There are additional benefits to using GPS tracking for kids that are truant. Most students who suffer from truancy issues also have other issues that they deal with. These issue can range from the extreme to the minor and include behavior involving drugs or alcohol, gang involvement, family life issues, or all of the above. Last year, the GPS tracking system for truant students was used to locate a member of the trial group on the verge of overdosing on illicit drugs. Also last year, the GPS system helped case workers discover that a student had ditched school because he was thinking about taking his own life. In both instances, a GPS tracking unit helped those concerned with the well being of the students to track them down and provide the assistance that they so desperately needed.

    But not every one is enamored with idea of kids GPS used in schools. According to a New York Times article, one Texas state senator is opposed to the idea because the “ankle cuffs used in an earlier version were reminiscent of slave chains” (source). This could be a comment based solely on the political aspirations of a politician since the ethnic make up of Bryan Adams High School is predominately non-European. The majority of students are Hispanic American (53%), with African Americans representing the next largest contingent (32%). In addition to ethnic diversity, the school is economically disadvantaged, with 62% being classified as such. These demographic statistics could be at the heart of the senator’s comments or it could really be that the school district is out to reintroduce and perpetuate slavery through GPS.

    In all, the Bryan Adams High School and Dallas ISD should be applauded for their efforts in utilizing GPS tracking devices to help students to maintain their attendance, pass school, and get quality jobs that can help alleviate the poverty in the community. The use of GPS tracking technology to improve current systems needs to be further explored and tested in real life situations if we are to fully develop and utilize this powerful technology.