Red Herring reports that Verizon Wireless is launching a GPS tracking service called “Verizon Chaperone” so parents can monitor the location of their children via their cellphones. Along with the ability of parents to log into a website to determine the cellphone’s location, Verizon will also offer a “geo-fencing” service whereby a parent receives a text-message if their kid’s phone moves outside a pre-defined area.
This probably is a valuable service for safety-conscious parents, but does open the door (which has generally been kept closed due to privacy concerns) to the launching of more tracking products that threaten one’s “location privacy.”
MichaelZimmer.org 