Parents can now monitor their teens' Facebook activity using an iPhone application called GoGoStat Parental Guidance by developer Schakra. Schakra is a sponsor of the International Bullying Prevention Association conference, which begins today in Seattle.
The new app, which was created by former Microsoft employees at Schakra, identifies risky behavior and provides information for parents to share with their kids. The app alerts parents when kids' inappropriate texts are posted, new contacts are made or photos of their children are uploaded.
GoGoStat Parental Guidance can provide parents with their teens' new "friending" actions, allowing parents to specify appropriate age and geographic ranges.
Parents and teens exchange a common Parental Security Code offline to ensure that only parents can legitimately establish a monitoring relationship. A panic button feature generates an emergency report for law enforcement agencies containing teen profile information, postings, friends and photographs to quickly help with emergency situations such as runaways or abductions.
"With iPhone adoption growing so rapidly, our aim is to make it as simple as possible for parents to monitor the social media activity of their teens on mobile devices too. This allows parents to be notified of potentially unsafe behavior even while on the go," said Bala Balabaskaran, vice president/products and chief architect at Schakra, in a statement.
The new iPhone app for GoGoStat Parental Guidance is available for free from the Apple App Store and requires a free account signup at www.gogostatpgmobile.com.