Would you spy on your grandkids technology use?
To spy or not to spy on our children? That’s the question being asked by a new wave of technology monitoring apps.
An app, called Teensafe, which already claims one million users in the US, as well as telco giant Telstra’s new offering, Mobile Protect, are just two popular services Australian parents can choose from. These apps, which let parents monitor their children’s online activity through their own computer, scan social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and even provide instant alerts when children stray into dangerous territory. They can also be used to tailor the child’s phone so it can block unwanted calls and texts and controls the times when kids can use their phones.
With more than 68 per cent of Australian children aged 12 to 17 with their own smartphones – many spending hours in a day on them – the new apps look to assuage parental fears and concerns over what their children get up to in the sometimes murky online world.
Research by AVG Technologies show that parents are deeply concerned about cyber risk with 41 per cent of Australian parents admitting to already using Facebook to keep tabs on teenagers without their knowledge. A third of parents worry children could ruin future job prospects with inappropriate internet use while 22 per cent feared their kids were sexting and more than a quarter had seen abusive or explicit comments on their children's accounts.
However, experts, including the Australian police, are warning this technology could hamper trust between parents and children. Detective Inspector Jon Rouse from the specialist child protection knows the dangers of the online world all too well. While he warns the threat of online predators is real, he believes parents should communicate with children and teach them risk associated with social media rather than solely relying on spying technology.
“Surely as a parent, your role is to engage with your child and have a loving, caring, trusting — and the key word there is trust — relationship with your child,” Detective Inspector Rouse told ABC.
“Immediately you embark on this kind of a path and it breaches that trust, and I think it would take a certain kind of relationship with a child where you would be resorting to this as the solution.”
Dr Joe Tucci, head of the Australian Childhood Foundation, agrees and sees inherent problems with such monitoring apps.
“I think it undermines the trust that parents and kids need to have in order to have a positive relationship," Dr Tucci told Sydney Morning Herald. "As kids get older, parents need to be like a lighthouse for their children. When things are going rough, parents are the people you need to be able to go to, and talk to. That trust is critical as a foundation for that open, honest communication. These sorts of apps undermine that. They basically say we can't trust our young people... we have to intrude into their world.”
Telstra cyber safety manager, Shelly Gorr, said while the service was a great way to help protect children, it is no way “the be-all and end-all for child safety.”
“I would advocate very strongly that parents don’t just rely on a technological tool, they still need to be parents as well,’’ she said.
Related links:
How to stay safe on public wifi
You’ll think twice before using your tablet in bed after reading this
How to prevent your Facebook being hacked