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Sprint Family Locator service would've cramped Ferris Bueller's style, but can provide peace of mind for parents Date published: 4/22/2006
By MICHAEL ZITZ "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" might have been boring if Sprint's Family Locator technology had existed when the classic 1986 teen comedy was made. When Ferris pretended to be sick to stay home from school, the global positioning system on his cell phone would have forced him to actually stay home. No Cubs game. No lunch at a ritzy Chicago restaurant. No "Danke Schön." His parents would've been alerted the minute he left the house. But that was 20 years ago. Back then, there were no cell phones, much less GPS. That was then. This is now: For $9.99 a month, Mom or Dad can use Sprint to keep track of the location of up to four phones--often without buying new handsets. They can get "snapshots" of the location of a family member at any moment. It's not a "tracking" service that follows the user down the street. But it can be set up to send alerts to a parent's phone that their child has arrived at school as scheduled, or hasn't arrived; that the child has left school early; that the child has gotten to soccer practice or has skipped it; that the child has gotten home at the appointed time or gone off to an unapproved party. Some are calling this not a "Big Brother," system, but "Big Mother." So is it spying? Absolutely not, insists regional Sprint spokeswoman Lisa I. Malloy. She points out that when the parent gives the child the phone, the child has to set it up to accept the location service--that it's part of the deal of getting their own handset. Then every time the parent checks on the child, the child receives a text message saying he or she has been located. "There's nothing about this that's behind the back of the child or the parent," Malloy says. "At 8:15, you get a text message that shows your child has been located at school," she says. "That's a little peace of mind.
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