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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.
"If they're supposed to be home from soccer practice at a certain time, you get a message saying your child has or has not been located, with the address. And your child receives a text message that says 'Your parent has received this information.'"
Two young Fredericksburg-area women hadn't heard of Sprint Family Locator yesterday, but weren't bothered by the concept.
Nineteen-year-old Katelyn Sherwood of King George County said she thinks the GPS service would be "great" for her 15-year-old sister.
"When you're under 18, you're under your parents' rule," Sherwood said, and parents have every right to know where their children are.
But, she said, as children near age 18, they'll probably resent it more and more.
Ashley Sellers, a 17-year-old senior at Courtland High School, said even though "I know some people might consider it an invasion of privacy," she wouldn't mind if her parents used the locator service because she doesn't make a habit of hiding things from them.
"I prefer to tell the truth rather than be caught in a lie," Sellers said.
And she said she doesn't resent their authority.
"I'm not an adult," she said, and she realizes her parents sometimes have better judgment.
Would her 15-year-old brother feel the same way?
"Absolutely not," Sellers said. "He wants to be on his own. His attitude is 'I'm a boy and I can take care of myself.' "
Of course, teens who consider the GPS service spying always have the option of getting a job and paying for their own cell phone and minutes.
Parents can make school, home, ball fields and friends' homes landmarks. And they can also make places they don't want the child to go landmarks. When the phone arrives at and leaves the landmarks, there will be a text message. Additionally, the child can be pinpointed on a map either on the phone or a PC at any point the parent wants to check his or her location.
Couldn't kids get around it by giving the phone to a friend to take to school? Perhaps, but the price of the service also includes 100 text messages a month, which can be used to ask questions. And, of course, a suspicious parent could simply call the phone.
Malloy said the location of each phone is carefully guarded and only the parent can access the information.
The service, which is the first of its kind in the cell phone industry, works with most Sprint phones.
Sprint doesn't provide sales information to the media, but Malloy said anecdotal evidence tells her it's being received well by parents.
The service could catch on in a hurry in the Fredericksburg area, where memories of the Lisk and Silva abductions and murders remain painfully fresh and concerns about children's privacy pale in comparison to the fear of predators.
"I ran into somebody today who has children who said they'd consider switching carriers to have this in the hands of their child," Malloy said.
To reach MICHAEL ZITZ:
Email: mikez@freelancestar.com
