This service offered by Verizon and some other cell carriers allows a parent, for example, to go online and see where a child’s cell phone is geographically located. Anyone know how this system works? The “Family Locator” page on the Verizon site is not functioning. Thanks.
IANA Engineer, but the principle seems very easy. All cell phones built within the last several years have GPS receivers built in, originally put there for 911 calling, so that the police can find where you are.
It’s not that hard for Verizon to maintain a database of the phones registered to your family plan and report the GPS information from one phone to another.
It is either GPS, as FatBaldGuy explained, or simple triangulation from multiple cell towers. The triangulation technology was mandated for 911 use before GPS-in-handsets became widespread. Even today, the GPS receiver in most phones is pretty poor; triangulation often offers a better position fix. And, unlike triangulation, the GPS features can be turned off by the user.
It is now possible for law enforcement to go to a special website, log in, key in a mobile phone number, and see where the phone is anywhere in the US. Sleep tight, America; Homeland Security has your back. Or is that your ass?
Cite?
That doesn’t especially inspire confidence in the service.
I been have using Verizon’s family locator (originally called Chaperone) for 1.5 years. Do you mean “what does it look like to a user”, or do you mean “how does the technology work”?
I have never encountered an outage on the web site, are you sure you’re trying the right address? Try this one (which provides a redirect)
http://verizonwireless.com/chaperone
First the technology. The phone of the person being tracked (presumably a child but we also have it on my independent-but-with-slight-dementia MIL) must support the service. It must be GPS-capable; I’m not sure of the other technical requirements. I do not know if the phone has native capability to process GPS signals, or if it transmits raw data to a server for interpretation.
You must sign up for the service for the phone of the person being tracked. The cost is about $10 a month, and I believe you have to have a Family plan. Once signed up, you download a “child” app onto that person’s phone. Anyone who wants to track that person downloads a “parent” app. There is no charge for “parent” phones.
From the web site, you set up locations. It has mapping capability that is not as good as the main mapping sites (MapQuest, Google) but it works. You can enter an address, or drop a pointer onto the map at any desired location. Once you set locations, you can set updates, which sends an alert based on a location. Each update is for a specific location and specific child phone. You can set it to send a notice to a “parent” phone by text message or to any email address when the person arrives at and/or leaves the location. You can tune the granularity to 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile, or 1 mile (IIRC) radius. You can also set one-time updates or updates for a date range.
Besides the alerts, the parent app on the phone and also the web site allow you to locate the child phone on demand. It shows you a map with the location marked.
Updates and mapping will not work if the child phone is powered off, or if it is not in range of a GPS signal, or if it is being used for a call. The person with the child phone can refuse to accept the service when turning it on, if they want to foil attempts to be located.
The first 9 months the service was a bit spotty and I had problems with it from time to time (not getting alerts). It was not well supported; when I called for tech support usually they were not familiar with the app and couldn’t do much to help. The alert messages were sent to the parent app, not by standard text, and the parent app displayed the message but did not play an alert sound. That was fairly useless to me so I configured all my alerts to be sent as email to my phone, and they arrive as text messages.
They were very eager to get this on the market and rushed it out before it was really ready. However, now they seem to have gotten the kinks out of it and I have no problems at all.
I would be happy to answer other questions you might have.
NM…didn’t see that I was in GQ and offered an opinion…
How does GPS work if the person is indoors?
Mostly it doesn’t. But you have to be outdoors to go from one place to another so the alerts work. But if you do a “locate” request while someone is indoors, it probably will tell you it can’t complete the request.
Interesting. The Verizon ads show the mother using Family Locator to keep track of her daughter in the mall.
Maybe there’s a repeater in the mall?
You can get phone coverage in a mall (or indoors in general), but you can’t get GPS signals. I don’t know if there is such a thing as a repeater for GPS, since the timing of the signals is crucial to the principle.
In fact I have set our local mall as a location for my daughter. I get an alert if she arrives at or leaves the mall, but if she’s inside the mall, a “locate” request will fail. (I have only used the “locate” request once in the time I’ve used the service.)