Sprint today introduced a new service to help parents use a phone to pinpoint the location of a child on a map. Tracked via cell phone, parents can also program the service to automatically send them a text message at a specific time each day to confirm the children have arrived at home or in school.

Photo: Sprint Unveils Mobile Child Locator Service Photo 1

Sprint's new Family Locator service shows data such as street addresses where the child is close to and the estimated accuracy of the reading, which could range from a radius of 2 yards around the child to a radius of hundreds of yards.

Sprint Family Locator has privacy and security features including:

- Permissions - To activate the service, parents can list up to four phone numbers they want to locate. For additional security, the parent creates a safety word that the parent and child both use only during the registration process to ensure permissions have been granted by both parties. Parents can also give permission to others, such as a grandparent or nanny, to locate a child.

- Locate - When a parent requests the child's location, Sprint Family Locator uses GPS technology to pinpoint the location and display it on an interactive map, along with the street address and surrounding landmarks, on the parent's or guardian's phone or PC. The child is notified by a text message each time his or her location is provided to the parent or guardian, ensuring open communication.

- Contact - Once the child is located, the parent or guardian can immediately call or send a text message to the child's phone.

- Safety Check - The parents can set alerts to notify them when the child arrives at a specified location, such as a school, home or a relative's house at a designated time. For example, a parent or guardian can be notified whether a child has arrived at school by 8:15 a.m. each day.

- Reports - Information on recent location requests is provided in text and map form.

Sprint Family Locator is available for download on 17 phone models and can be used to locate 30 GPS-enabled phone models. For $9.99 per month, subscribers can register up to four phones to locate, receive unlimited location requests and send 100 text messages to each child phone.