Full Notification

Why can geolocation service apps be a problem?

• Location apps let children post their actual, physical location
• According to a 2010 study by McAfee Inc., 69% of the children between ages 13-17 have included their physical location in their social networking status update
• Safety and privacy are the major areas of concern
• Marketers use these programs to send highly targeted ads
• If you're going to use them, set privacy controls to the strictest settings

Social Networking Gets Really Personal:

Social networks connect children online. But a new technology takes connecting a step further such as face-to-face meet-ups. New programs called location-sharing use geographic information from your phone to connect people to specific places, as well as to each other. You may have heard of some of the most popular ones: Loopt, foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places. Most of these programs are designed for smart phones, but they can also be accessed on the Web. Once you join, you can post your actual physical location.

And that's what makes location sharing a problem for kids and teens. These programs bring up two big issues: safety and privacy. Since they let you post your location, they can expose your child’s whereabouts to anyone they accept as a "friend" or, in some cases, to any other user of the program. Also, advertisers are already using social mapping to target users with ads and incentives to visit their businesses (most of which are bars and restaurants).

For instance, Facebook Places are available on iPhones or accessible through the company's website. It gives you the option of sharing your location with your Facebook friends and checking specific locations to see if your friends are there. For users under 17, Places is an "opt in" feature, meaning you have to enable it to use it. But make sure you check your child’s privacy settings anyway.

What Parents Need to Know:

1. The apps must be downloaded, and even though they're free, you'll get a receipt for it, so you'll know whether it's been installed. Either way, check your child's phone for these apps.

2. If you think it's OK for your child to use one of these apps, then you must make sure that their privacy settings are set to the strictest options (as in, designated "friends” only). That said, there are no guarantees that your child will be 100% protected from strangers or unwanted advertisers.

3. Since the programs allow users to post directly to Facebook or Twitter from any location, questions of safety and responsible behavior must be addressed. You don't want someone telling everyone about a party at someone else's house.


* Having a GPS app on your phone can be useful to monitor your child’s whereabouts. The danger begins when the child links their social network site to their GPS phone.