A number of the major mobile phone service providers offer “family locator” products which give parents the ability to see the real time location of their child on interactive maps they can view on the computer or smart phone. Parents can also define locations or areas, and receive updates when their children arrive at or depart from those locations, or enter/exit pre-set boundaries. Verizon and Sprint each offer “family locator” products, which cost between $5 and $10 a month, and are easy to set up, use and maintain.

While some argue parental control software is an invasion of children’s privacy, they probably didn’t see a recent survey of over 1,500 children, ages 10 to 17, which concluded that approximately 25% of those children had undesired exposure to images of people who were either nude and/or having sex. Or that approximately 20% of those children had been the recipient of some form of unwanted sexual solicitation. Or that 22% of targets for online predators were between the ages of 10 and 13.

The good news is that parental control software is inexpensive, easy to set up, and robust. It’s easy to install, impossible for the kids to discover (and subsequently shut off) or change, and can be set up to email parents in real time when their kids are engaging in behavior online which could pose a risk to their safety.

One product we frequently recommend or help clients implement is e-Blaster by Spectorsoft, which is a great example of the amazing functionality available in the parental control software market. E-Blaster can be configured to email parents exact copies of all their children’s online activity, including their chats and instant messages, emails, etc. It also enables parents to remotely block websites, specific user ID’s or profiles which they believe to be unsafe. It also provides reports detailing the child’s Facebook-related activity, which may highlight the fact that their child has an “alternative” Facebook profile which they weren’t aware the child used (sometimes children forget to mention those things).

The concerns that keep parents awake at night haven’t really changed all that much over the years, since moms and dads across the country still worry about how fast their kids are driving, who they’re talking to and hanging out with, and the simplest but probably most important one of all: where exactly they are. And frankly, the dangers children face haven’t changed all that much either, save for one BIG one that popped up about 15 years ago: the information super highway, a.k.a. the internet. The good news is that while the primary fears of parents and dangers to children haven’t changed much, technology now gives parents a number of solutions to help them. Parents contact me quite frequently, seeking advice on solutions to help them with monitoring their children in three main areas:

1. Driving
2. Internet
3. Location

I’ll cover each of the topics in separate blog posts over the next few weeks, starting with…

DRIVING:

The risks associated with teenagers driving are obvious, namely that as inexperienced drivers, they are far more prone to be involved in accidents than adults with more years of driving experience. In fact, car crashes are the leading cause of death among 15-20 year olds in the USA, so parents’ concern in this area is understandable and justified. Fortunately, the same GPS tracking technology we use in infidelity-related cases enables parents to monitor their children’s driving remotely.

In a nutshell, the parents hook up a small device (size ranges from a pack of gum to a pack of cigarettes) to the vehicle the teen will be driving. The device is constantly communicating with GPS satellites and records the vehicle’s speed and location. There are a number of products available in this space, and the more advanced solutions can be set up to automatically email, SMS or call parents if the teen is speeding or has ventured some place they shouldn’t be going. Some even enable parents to remotely sound an alarm, flash lights, or honk the car horn if they get an email that their child is currently doing 95mph in a 25mph zone. Brickhouse Security offers a number of products, including this GPS tracking device which is small but has a lot of great features.

Check back soon for my next blog post on tracking children’s online activity…

With the recent rash of male celebrities caught cheating on their wives, you might think that men cheat more frequently than women. Not so, according to statistics. While it’s difficult to gather accurate information on infidelity, most surveys indicate that women cheat as often as men. But if that’s the case, why do the infidelity scandals that hit the news every week always seem to involve a male celebrity cheating?

Maybe female celebrities are cheating just as often as their male counterparts and simply aren’t getting caught. But the fact that half the tabloid magazine covers seem to include the word “cheater” along with a photo of guys like John Edwards, Tiger Woods, and Jesse James may also be explained by some differences in how, why, and with whom men and women cheat.

Infidelity Fact #1:
Women are more likely to have emotional affairs than men, and emotional affairs aren’t as black and white as physical affairs. Consequently, women are less likely to be caught having an emotional affair, and if caught, they have a better chance of talking their way out of trouble. It’s far easier for a woman to explain a borderline inappropriate email from a colleague, than it is to explain why that same colleague is in bed with her.

Infidelity Fact #2:
Men are more likely to engage in some form of online cheating, which leaves a digital trail. These trails include emails, chat sessions, internet history, and other evidence that often leads to the man being caught. In addition to exposing the cheating, the digital evidence can easily be copied, forwarded, printed, or in the case of Tiger Woods’ text messages, published on the internet and in magazines.

Infidelity Fact #3:
Women tend to have affairs within their social group, i.e. with people from work, school, and, sorry religious folk, church. This factor often coincides with #1, since many of these affairs tend to start out in the emotional category. And a wife having coffee with a friend from school, or going out for drinks with co-workers, might not arouse suspicion.

Infidelity Fact #4:
Men are more likely to have one night stands or very short term affairs, and to do so with younger women. This often results in them cheating with young, single women, a la Tiger Woods. These young single women don’t have any skin in the game, i.e. a husband they’re afraid might find out about their affair. The real problem arises when they feel scorned, since there is nothing to keep them from going to the wife, or in Tiger’s case, news outlets and gossip magazines. Celebrity men face another challenge, as these young single women are enticed by the 15 minutes of fame they know they’ll get if they take the affair public.

Infidelity Fact #5:
Men are more likely to be serial cheaters, increasing the odds of them being caught. Tiger is the best example of this, but Jesse James also appears to qualify as a serial cheater. While a wife might not notice the first or second affair, by the time the husband gets to number 15, there’s a good chance he will get caught.

During the pre-internet days, researching your family tree involved sifting through stacks of old paper records or microfiche in dusty library archives. But nowadays, anyone with a computer and internet connection can visit a genealogy website and quickly trace their family tree back many generations.

As a private investigator, I’ve used genealogy websites a number of times to help develop a profile on the subject of an investigation. They can be particularly helpful in missing persons cases because they can provide a list of family relatives, including siblings and parents, and dates of birth for both the subjects and their relatives.

For example, a missing persons case might be to find a John Smith who was born in NY state, is in his 50’s and has a sister whose married name is Susan Miller. Without a critical personal identifier like a Social Security number or date of birth, finding information about the correct John Smith might be very difficult since there are likely many John Smith’s fitting that description.

Using a genealogy site, you could research Smith families from NY with siblings John and Susan in the correct age range. Susan’s married name Miller should help you find the correct John Smith and his date of birth. This will give you the critical personal identifier you need to do more detailed research. Best of all, most of the information on genealogy sites is very inexpensive, if not free, to access.

A few of the more popular and useful genealogy sites are:
Genealogy.com
Ancestry.com
FamilySearch.org