TV: WPVI - Philadelphia

The Cell Phone That Promises to Track Your Teen: An Action News Consumer Report - 2004/02/19

You gave your teen a cell phone. Now you can give them one that promises to track their every move.

It's a way for parents to track their child's whereabouts, but does it work? What good is a cell phone if your child forgets to call or doesn't answer? Well, a new cellular service claims to solve those problems so we put it to the test. Wouldn't it be nice if you could monitor your teen's every move? Maria Arena wishes she could.

Maria Arena/SOUTH PHILADELPHIA:

"It's just today, the world is so bad, I'm just paranoid 1:16:20 worrying about them all the time."
Jade Perry/MARIA'S GRANDDAUGHTER:

"And she'll treat me sometimes like I'm little, like a six-year-old or something and I'd really like to have more freedom around."

So for 10-year-old Jade's sake and of course, Maria's we ask them to try out U-Locate.
"It says U Locate is starting."

The service promises to let subscribers like Maria track a loved one's whereabouts By using a cell phone with a G-P-S chip. G-P-S stands for Global Positioning System.

"So I'm going to give you this."

After giving jade a phone, we send her on a trip with one of our producers and a home video camera.

"Now we're on our way to school."

Meanwhile, Maria doesn't know where Jade's headed. We stay home with her to see if she really can monitor her granddaughter's progress.

"Okay are you at 1220 Shunk Street?"

"Is that where you are? Okay. Terrific. Fantastic."

You can track a cell phone's whereabouts by logging onto U-Locate's website, which is what we ask Maria to do. But you can also view locations on another cell phone.

"She's on the 2500 block of South 13th Street."

U-Locate provides and stores location information every 2 minutes. So not only can you track where your children are in real time you can also view their entire route later.

"So she went around three streets in two minutes now if I refresh it..."

"Let's see where she is now."

On her computer - Maria can also map the addresses of where Jade is. U-Locate can pin locations on a map as big as the nation or as small as your own block.

"Okay now you're on 11th and Moyamensing, right?"

"Okay."

"Keep going."

Online - you can also set up a virtual boundary around a specific location like a school or home so you're automatically alerted when your child leaves or arrives at a specific location.

"Like if they're missing - at least you know when they left."

According to Maria - U-Locate more than lives up to its name. During our test, its margin of error proves to be less than a block.

"Ah, did you have a good time?"

"Yeah."
"I think it's great, I would definitely buy it."

Right now to use U-Locate you have to have a Motorola phone on the Nextel network or a Benefon on the T-Mobil, AT&T and Cingular networks. The service is being offered on a free trial basis but eventually it will cost $12.95 per month for the first phone in the account and $9.95 a month for each additional phone.

http://www.ulocate.com/