Phone for grounded kid: GPS tracking, allow calls/txts, NO internet/apps

August 1, 2016 8:40 AM

My friend has a 13 year old who has been getting into serious trouble; police got involved and a criminal charge is pending. His mom wants him to have a phone for emergency calls, text messaging, and to keep track of where he is by GPS. *But no apps like Kik, snapchat, hide photos in the fake calculator, and so on. What phone can do this on AT&T?

The 13 year old boy is hanging out with boys who get him into trouble and hides that from his mom by deleting messages and using apps to hide his photos of things he DEFINITELY shouldn't be doing. No one has been hurt yet, but with the police involved his mom wants to shut it down, track him with the phone, and still allow him to be available to call or txt at any time.

Ideally, there would be a good software based solution that would let her lock down his iPhone on AT&T, but he's worked around the most basic programs.

If she can't keep the iPhone, she'd like a "dumb phone" that only allows calls / txts but also can be tracked by GPS.

What phone would you recommend for this? Preferable with AT&T as that's her provider.

posted by unclezeb to Computers & Internet (19 answers total)

The iPhone's parental controls (Settings > General > Restrictions) will get her pretty far. Has she tried that already?
posted by misterbrandt at 8:49 AM on August 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: You can disable most features on the iPhone using parental controls, including the camera. She would need to confiscate his phone, delete everything on it she doesn't want him to have (or just reset it), and enable the parental controls.

In theory, she could enable Find My Friends on her son's iPhone to track him, but her son would probably be smart enough to disable that. There are other services out there that let parents snoop on their kids' phones that are harder to defeat. I'll let her find them.
posted by adamrice at 8:50 AM on August 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

We use Sprint and have the ability to limit some of the service the kids can use. I can turn off internet access and limit which number they are able to call and text. I believe they also allow you to track the phone location with out have to load anything on the phone. You still pay for the service but that phone can not use them. This is done on an individual phone. I think other providers also have this ability.
posted by tman99 at 9:14 AM on August 1, 2016

Response by poster: She told me she tried settings > restrictions but after reviewing what can be limited there I doubt she went into detail to turn off everything.

I've read about other programs to use on the iPhone:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-parental-control-apps,review-2258.html
PhoneSheriff.com, Norton, etc.
But they all seem inadequate as they can't limit / tracking calling and text messaging (unlike the android options).

My initial (half-joking) suggestion was a dumb phone and a GPS ankle monitor but she reasonably wants to try less invasive means first.

Any other program, software, or phone suggestions?
posted by unclezeb at 9:22 AM on August 1, 2016

Be aware that there have been a number of cases of people trying to track others down with find my phone apps and other GPS apps and ending up in the wrong spot. You can easily get a false positive on this. A friend of mine even had a pissed off mom banging on her door in the middle of the night looking for her daughter after tracking her with her phone. Needless to say, my confused friend did not have any knowledge of the stranger's daughter's whereabouts.
posted by amanda at 9:28 AM on August 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

My 13 year old almost 14 year old has a flip phone/dumb phone. Most phone companies offer one or two models. They are cheap.
posted by latkes at 9:30 AM on August 1, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Has she considered also taking his phone away for a certain period of time until things get back on track? As a high school teacher, I can say that this is often one of the most effective ways for parents to help their children who are have had trouble and are at risk for more. Chances are that it'll keep him out of more trouble in various ways and likely motivate him to improve his behavior in order to get it back. While having a phone helps make things easier for teens and parents, they are not necessary and can be difficult. Thirteen is one of the hardest ages because kids are especially susceptible to peer pressure and the addition of new technology along with weak impulse control can be a disaster. The good news is that I have found that most teens can find a balance by the time they turn 14 or 15.
posted by smorgasbord at 9:31 AM on August 1, 2016 [12 favorites]

GPS tracking is not going to give you a very precise location. It should be able to tell that the phone is on the west side of town when it is suppose to be on the east side.
posted by tman99 at 9:32 AM on August 1, 2016

I think you want to look at a phone that's just a phone. You can call and you can text.

There are apps that claim to be able to do GPS tracking.
posted by SemiSalt at 9:34 AM on August 1, 2016

OH, sorry I missed that you also want GPS tracking.
posted by latkes at 9:34 AM on August 1, 2016

I would call AT&T and ask for a flip phone that works with Family Locator. Then walk them through all the scenarios.

I found it very frustrating to talk to cell phone providers about a flip phone, because they wanted to upsell me for data and iPhones. What worked was going into their online chat, because those workers (for this company) were not on commission.

See https://www.att.com/shop/apps/familymap.html
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 9:35 AM on August 1, 2016 [4 favorites]

On AT&T, you do also have the ability to shut off data services completely for a single phone line, though I'm not sure if that breaks GPS.
posted by Andrhia at 9:53 AM on August 1, 2016

Middle school teacher here. Definitely would suggest removing phone, Internet and video game privileges for quite some time, to be earned back with good behavior. He will survive without. I'd also question the amount of unsupervised time kid has. Some 13yo kids are just not ready for certain responsibilities and decision-making yet - he's been given freedom to make choices and he's clearly not ready for it.
posted by gnutron at 11:14 AM on August 1, 2016 [11 favorites]

Andrhia: "On AT&T, you do also have the ability to shut off data services completely for a single phone line, though I'm not sure if that breaks GPS."

I can turn off anyone's data that is on my plan, but I cannot turn off their wifi. Also, turning off data does not turn of text.
posted by AugustWest at 11:26 AM on August 1, 2016

A non-answer from the peanut gallery: a few years ago I got a SMS notification that my parents had turned on the GPS tracking our shitty then-provider offered. I'm over thirty, so I called them to ask something along the lines of "Huh?" It turned out that my brother had lost his phone on the side of the road somewhere on a five mile stretch of fairly rural road, and when they'd turned on tracking, apparently it'd activated for everyone on the family plan. Anyway, it pinpointed his lost phone's location within five feet. So GPS can indeed work very precisely. It may make a difference that this was a high-ish end Android on Sprint.
posted by tapir-whorf at 11:34 AM on August 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

In reality, unless that kid is home with just his parents, he can easily borrow a friend's phone to do anything he wants to do. Trying to limit phone use is, well, useless... they WILL find a way.

Take his phone away, he doesn't deserve having one and they aren't as necessary as we all believe they are.
posted by HuronBob at 11:41 AM on August 1, 2016 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Best answer is get a dumb phone and use AT&T Smart Limits to restrict who he can call/txt. I was in an AT&T store yesterday and they had flip-phones on display. On the ATT sales site go to the phone section and under "Filter by Style" select "Feature Phone". The LG B470 or Cingular Flip should be suitably humiliating.

For AT&T+iPhone:

Grab the phone and factory default it (Settings->General->Reset->All data and settings).

Create a new Apple account just for this phone and associate this phone with it. Pick a wicked password. Load the apple Find My iPhone app and whatever you want him to use. Upgrade to latest IOS. If it's new enough, add your fingerprints to the keyring.

Set up parental controls: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201304. Only allow apps like messaging. He won't be able to load new stuff without the PIN and Apple account info. N.B. - He can still delete txts.

Go to www.att.com and log into your account (or create one, and make sure it has a strong password) and go to myATT->Wireless->Smart Limits. In here you can block all voice/txt except your number. You'll have to read the doco; I don't remember the details. You'll get a weekly usage report with this.

Then go to myATT->Wireless->Family Map and set up tracking. You need to acknowledge that this is set up on the phone, so do that before you give it back.

There's more you can do, and I suppose there's the possibility of work arounds, but this worked pretty well when I needed to lock down an iPhone.

On AT&T, you do also have the ability to shut off data services completely for a single phone line, though I'm not sure if that breaks GPS.

The AT&T Family Map thing requires data to be up to run, apparently. Not sure about the Apple app.
posted by kjs3 at 3:13 PM on August 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

My sister in law uses the Parent Kit app for for nephews iPhone with great results. It's a little pricy but she can pretty much kill anything she wants from her phone and he can't disable it.
posted by checkitnice at 4:35 PM on August 1, 2016

"GPS tracking is not going to give you a very precise location. It should be able to tell that the phone is on the west side of town when it is suppose to be on the east side."

That's not true at all. Perhaps you're confusing cell-tower based tracking with GPS tracking?
posted by Static Vagabond at 7:34 AM on August 2, 2016