Can Parents Track Their Teenagers?

Teenagers, the sponges of available information, always seem to be one step ahead of their seniors when it comes to new technology. The excitement for the future and rebellious nature encourages the youth to try new things in every endeavor. Experimentation with technology can lead to the discovery of new passions, goals, and dreams.

Through curious research, trial and error, internet privacy, secrecy, encryption, and anonymity often emerge as attractive topics. Often depicted (but poorly represented) in spy and hacker movies, these IT niches are the bait that lures the youth into the world of computer science.

Modern teenagers love to use this knowledge to battle boredom in schools and use internet privacy tools to avoid firewalls. By rerouting the connection through a proxy server, the imposed limitations no longer apply, as the delivered data packets avoid passing through an intermediary station. You might even know that by hiding your IP address, proxy servers also change the presented location. For example, you can use German proxies to have local Google recommendations, different ads, and video suggestions. German proxies can also help you visit websites that are blocked in your country, let alone your classroom. Teenagers in authoritarian countries use proxies all the time as their version of the internet is very different from the free web Western countries enjoy. You can use German proxies or servers closest to you that achieve the same goal with a smaller loss of internet speed.

With enough experience, we start noticing the harsh truth about the internet and how companies or persistent individuals can track internet users with little to no effort. This begs the question: how easy it is for parents to track their children? If businesses do this all the time, can your others do it?

Tracking software for children

Every browsing experience on the internet can be different. Understanding the information and content fed to their children, parents are often horrified by the potential effect the experience may have on their development. Phone and computer addictions at a young age are no joke, and everyone must be responsible while using smart devices.

However, when pushed too far, teenagers look for ways to fight back against the restrictions imposed by strict, overprotective parents. To understand if the individual is being tracked, one must know the most common tracking software used to spy on kids and teenagers.

Most popular tracking apps like “Kidlogger” get injected into the computers and phones of teenagers. Available on most popular Operating Systems (OS), parental control apps provide remote access to the browsing history of the most common browser, engagement time tracking, changes in memory and additions of external drives, text and keystroke recording, usage of files, applications, surveillance of messenger apps, completed screenshots and even customizable e-mail reports that analyze the collected information.

Location tracking

Either through the same tools or additional assistance from other software, parents or guardians can set up the teenager’s device to deliver constant GPS location tracking updates to their phone. When seeing their kids in suspicious locations, most parents choose the ethical decision of calling them. Still, some choose to push the invasion of privacy to unreasonable levels by accessing their pictures and videos to always keep up with their activity. If the tracking software has the device camera capture, the parent can use it to take remote pictures with the phone’s camera. This feature can be adjusted to take pictures every time the device is unlocked.

The danger of tracking apps

Setting up trackers and keyloggers has never been easier. Even parents with poor IT knowledge can communicate with software providers to set up a fully trackable device before giving it back to the child.

While there are parents that buy trackers to make sure their kids don’t get scammed or abused, finding the right balance between paternal protection and invasion of privacy can be very difficult. Even if parents only wish the best for their children, suppressing curious teenagers may have long-lasting consequences.

Letting the individual know that you want them tracked is a good starting point, but parents rarely choose to do so. Even though being a parent comes with many hardships, most enjoy being the authority to their children. When we add an ability to track their teenagers, some cannot resist the power trip and curiosity that comes with it. The most protective parents in the past never had so much control over their children, and eliminating all potential dangers and unpredictable outcomes can ruin the teenager’s experience.

Modern trackers and keyloggers are so advanced that your parents can be tracking you right now without your knowledge. If your parents have had full access to your electronic devices and paid for the most effective software on the market, even your growing computer science knowledge may fail to protect you from tracking.