Pocket tracker monitors children

Worried parents will soon be able to keep an eye on their children 
at all times via a wearable tracking device and a website that maps 
where they go.  

The wearable device will have a panic button that, when pressed, 
instantly alerts parents via phone that something is wrong.  

Through the website parents will be able to pinpoint the location of 
their children in real time as well as replay where they have been over 
the last few hours.  

SOS Response, creators of the service, says testing of the tracking 
system is due to begin soon.  

Safety first

To track people the system uses a radio network operated by QuikTrak 
that has towers dotted around the greater London area.  

The QuikTrak technology is similar to that used by some mobile phone 
systems but needs one-tenth the number of radio towers to cover the 
same area.  

Signals from the tracking device are picked up by several towers and 
help QuikTrak triangulate and pinpoint the position of any device.  

Information about the movements of devices is logged and can be 
viewed via a website that plots their whereabouts.  

Australian firm QuikTrak operates a similar network in Sydney, 
Melbourne and Brisbane that is heavily used by delivery companies 
and taxi firms to monitor movements of their staff and vehicles.  

However, Michelle Riddy, head of SOS Response, said she believed 
that many UK parents would welcome the chance to keep an eye on 
where their children have been.  

Many parents of young children and teenagers would like to ease 
their fears for their offspring by regularly checking where they 
were and that everything was fine.  

"You can now let your children out again because you can find out 
where they are," she said.  

Current versions of the tracking device are about the size of a 
mobile phone and have a text messaging system built in.  

Ms Riddy said SOS Response was working on putting the gadget into 
watches, calculators and toys and even belts to give children more 
than one reason to carry it.  

The monitoring devices would also be fitted with a panic button that 
could be pressed if a child or teenager was lost, needed help or, more 
rarely, had been abducted.  

Pressing the button would instantly alert parents via phone that 
something was wrong.  

Croc shock

QuikTrak covers an area centred on London that extends north to 
Stevenage and south to Crawley, and to Basildon in the east and 
High Wycombe in the west. 

Andy Parritt, business development director of QuikTrak, said the 
technology had advantages over GPS satellite systems because it 
worked indoors, in built-up areas and had a return path for the 
swapping of messages.  

Mr Parritt said that in Australia car security firms used the system 
to track and recover stolen vehicles. Many vehicles fitted with QuikTrak 
monitors were also fitted with remote control immobilisers that can be 
turned on when a stolen vehicle is being pursued.  

Currently courier and taxi firm Addison Lee is trialling the system 
to see if it can improve the efficiency with which it hands out jobs 
to the 700 vehicles in its fleet.  

The idea for developing a passive tracking system came about 
after Dr Michael Yerbury had a close encounter with a crocodile 
he was studying.  

Dr Yerbury then set up Advanced Systems Research to develop the 
radio technology that could be used to monitor the movements of  
animals or people wearing discrete tracking devices. 

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Source: BBC ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2946183.stm

Cheers, Steve..

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