Reach Out and Track Someone – Sprint Offers the “Family Locator” Service

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The Sprint Family Locator is a new service being offered by Sprint that allows you to track up to four family phones via their GPS coordinates. What this means is that you can log into your PC, or just use your phone, and determine exactly where those other phones are at any given moment. Want to keep tabs on your high school senior? Give them a Sprint Nextel phone and you’re in like Flynn. Want to track your wayward spouse? Just add their Sprint or Nextel phone to the plan. Spyi..er..tracking your loved one was never so easy.

Invasion of privacy? Lack of trust? Obviously Sprint Nextel doesn’t see it that way. According to them, “Sprint Family Locator is an inexpensive way for families on the go to stay in constant touch. Mom, Dad or a trusted caregiver can locate loved ones without disturbing their activities, receive notification when a child enters or leaves a designated area, and quickly and easily send text messages to one or more family members.”

Let’s look at the subtext:

“Mom, Dad or a trusted caregiver can locate loved ones without disturbing their activities…”

They can know exactly where you are, and by extension exactly what you are doing, without your having any idea that they are tracking you.

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and “…receive notification when a child enters or leaves a designated area…”

First, let’s be clear, these work for anyone, regardless of age. It’s nice to pitch it as a child safety feature – after all, who can argue with that? But it’s just as easy to use it with your spouse’s phone. Did they say they were working late at the office? Did they leave the office? Whammo.

And that’s not all!

Now, through the magic of the Sprint Family Locator Safety Check, you can actually monitor your obsess..er..loved one’s location throughout the day, automatically!

“Simply put, Safety Checks are periodic, automatic location requests coupled with notification. At a certain time on selected days, a Safety Check will perform an automated location request for a “Child” handset and then notify you where that handset is. You select the time of day, days of the week, “Child” handset, and notification method – all via Sprint Family Locator.”

Now, isn’t that nice?

So, how many of you would use this sort of technology on a loved one, child or otherwise? How many of you would do it without telling them?

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14 thoughts on “Reach Out and Track Someone – Sprint Offers the “Family Locator” Service

  1. And how appro2is it for a couple splitting up, for one spouce to be tracking the others whereabouts? It is an INCREDIBLE invasion of privacy! I can see the use for a teenager… but, there has got to be a way for an adult tp be able to opt out of being stalked by a future ex-spouce.

  2. Perhaps yoi can come up with a hack, but this is a good service for parents as well as for assisting in finding a lost phone. I set mine up to send me a text if my kid wasn’t at school at a particular time. Great if you have a kid that cuts school (i don’t), but not great if they have their phone where coverage can’t reach it (e.g. a locker) or it’s turned off. In those cases it did tell me where they were (usually at home), but it used the cell tower tracking which offered a rough location. I don’t think that after the initial location notifier that it sent them a notification every day.

  3. I have had two people come to my house after they lost their phone. They called the Sprint call center. Sprint gave them my address. They came to my house and accused me of stealing their phones. I didn’t, and I had to call the police on the second fellow who was incredibly aggressive. I’m trying to find out what the issue is now, but Sprint is stonewalling us. Which motivates me all the more to try to get it resolved before the next fellow pulls out a weapon after Spring them our address.

  4. Kind of hard to stalk someone when sprint text them everytime they are located and tells them the number that is locating them. Personally if I want to check up on my kids I would really not like them to be texted everytime I do it.

  5. I have only JUST heard of this service yesterday. One of my daughters friends lost her phone and they were able to track it to a house in their neighborhood, It was the Janitor of their JR high that had it and he was texting very inappropritely to her friends with it!!!!!! He got it out of her gym locker. I am thrilled that he was caught and will add this now to my daughters phone To many CREEPS out their. Kids have phones at a very young age and anything can happen

  6. Go to the sprint website read about the program and you will see that you cannot just track anyone in the world with it….4 family members…meaning on the same plan. I think it is great

  7. To think that someone – even if it is a parent – can track your phone that easily, does seem like an invasion of privacy. Being priced at only 5.99 a month, this is an easy service to use to stalk someone. Whatever happened to good old trust? Sprint Services are out of their minds for making this publically available. Whereas stalkin..tracking [my bad] was either a top secret service or available only to hackers or professionals is now on the loose. No matter who it is, you can be tracked at any time and not even know about it. Yes, you can turn your phone off, but doesn’t that make it all the more obvious that you are trying to hide your location? It is a great violation of privacy and is a conspiration similar to Big Brother. Whereas it was one person being able to track everyone and know exactly what they are doing, the Sprint Family Locator service is minimizing that idea and handing it over to over protective parents or spouces. You can only protect those you obsess over to a certain extent..even though you may not have enough faith or trust in them, once they find out about this service, they will loose trust in you. Are you willing to do that? If you are, then by all means, stalk those you think should be stalked; but just remember, it shows what kind of a character you have and how its YOU that should not be trusted.

  8. I am lost for words. I feel that this tracking is an invasion of privacy and should be outlawed by the government.

  9. Please… All those who worry that this is an invasion of privacy, have never heard of services like “Loopt” – which are fairly popular among budding generations. And if you are so worried that you are being tracked and could possibly be caught doing something you shouldn’t – TURN OFF the locator on the phone… Or just try (imagine this) being a trustworthy person! For the person ranting about government conspiracy theories and someone potentially leaving a cell phone in your car for tracking (left on for how long before the battery dies?)… There are already devices that magnetically attach to your wheel well that can do this – they are cheaper and consume much less power. Why bother with the cell phone?

  10. I think this is great idea and is not an invasion at all. This would be great for High school, College and senior people to have this technology maybe not a phone but this type of technology does have a place.

  11. Tracking someone with this technology is great for keeping an eye on your child to make sure he or she is ok but in the wrong hands it is a violation of everyone’s rights. Case in point How would you like me to track you all i have to do is buy a phone put it in your car, bike or what ever you are in and i can watch every move you make 24-7. If you are over at a friends house or your girl friends house and any information i require i can get from this technology. this technology is very dangerous and should be not able to use and if used the wrong way for spying on someone then there should be law suits to prevent this. Another technology that has come to attention is the US Government can turn on your speaker on your mobile phone and listen to your comments, who you talking to, your most secretive information do you think this is right well i think this is totally wrong and should be outlawed.

  12. i would like to provide the same service to people in my country,
    how can i get the technology running in my country.
    i can get grant from the government of Botswana to star up a service like this one.
    lets do it

  13. The only problem I can’t figure out how to keep my daughter’s phone from texting her when I locate her. Without being able to do this, it is very annoying to my daughter. Is there a way to check her location without her receiving the text?

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