Would you like to look, regularly, through your teenager’s emails, text messages, Facebook posts and WhatsApp chats? Are you concerned about your child’s online existence and the dangers they can be exposed to via the smartphones they are never seen without?
These dangers — the potential for cyber-bullying, sexting, inappropriate language and grooming — explain why parents are fast getting into the habit of snooping on them. In January, a report from the Pew Research Centre in the US revealed that more than 60% of parents with teenagers regularly spied on their online behaviour: checking which sites they visited, what they were saying on social media and to whom, and what replies they received.
The survey also showed that nearly 50% of parents in America checked their children’s text messages and phone calls, while 39% said they had used online parental controls to filter which sites their children could visit or to monitor their browsing.
“Legally, you can’t track what your offspring are up to once they are 18, but anyone younger is fair game
“Think of it as grabbing your child’s smartphone and checking out what they are doing on it,” says Rawdon Messenger, the chief executive of TeenSafe, which makes software that allows parents to monitor their children’s activities without snatching their phones.
So how do you spy on your teenager online? Quite apart from that, should you? Legally, you can’t track what your offspring are up to once they are 18, but anyone younger is fair game.
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I have four children. Phoebe is 18, so out of the running, and Lucien, 11, has no smartphone or email address.
In the middle are Gabriel, 16, and Honey, 13 — both of whom agreed, slightly reluctantly, to allow me to test a range of products that could check them out online.
What I discovered was fascinating.
1 OnlineThem
This easy-to-install software was devised by James Blake, who says he was worried about cyber-bullying and keen to see to whom his teenage daughter was chatting online. As with all the products here, you will need the password to your child’s phone so you can install an app on it, and/or the usernames and passwords for your child’s social media accounts.
OnlineThem, which is installed on your computer, doesn’t survey messaging services such as Snapchat, WhatsApp, Kik ortexts, nor does it dive into detail; instead it highlights “positive” or “negative” words your teens might be posting on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, using categories such as “crime” , “high risk” or “adult”.
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You are sent a monthly report and can choose to receive immediate alerts if high-risk behaviour is identified. Any offensive words are highlighted and you click on the word to see the phrase in which they occur. The product will also show if, say, your child starts sending Facebook posts to new people or to an address abroad.
OnlineThem says it is taking “digital parenting to a new level”, although as it surveys only a limited variety of social media, I wonder how effective it is.
What you can see Single words from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; time and location of postings.
How helpful It showed me my children don’t swear much (online, at least) and that Gabriel was sending Facebook messages to someone who went to America on holiday. His top positive word was “funny” and his top negative word was “f******”. I clicked on the word to find the context: “F****** lost my phone at Nando’s.” Ah, the perils of teenage life.
Honey’s top “positive” word was “growing”. There was no data for negative words. She talked to school friends about haircuts and potential names for cats (Apricot) and said “Aww thanks” a lot.
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Get it Download the software from onlinethem.com. A subscription costs £4.99 a month.
2 TeenSafe
Once you download TeenSafe (coming to the UK once it has satisfied our stern data protection regulations), prepare for an insight into the wonderful world of teenage slang. This software takes you straight into every text received and sent, every WhatsApp conversation and every attempt at Instagram banter.
More than 2m parents in the US have signed up to TeenSafe. Its London-born boss, Rawdon Messenger, says he has “many, many” stories of parents who have discovered alarming truths about their children via the product.
“We had a mother who discovered her 13-year-old daughter had agreed to meet up with a much older man,” he tells me. “Another mother found out that her son was dealing drugs.”
What you can see Every text (but not texted pictures), pictures on Instagram and WhatsApp conversations, browser history, numbers called and phone location. Not for the faint-hearted.
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How helpful I learnt my children like posting photos of holidays, funny shots of animals and selfies on Instagram. Honey spends a lot of time talking about the colour of phone cases with friends. There was a single dodgy photo (probably from a magazine) on Gabriel’s Instagram, but he is 16.
Get it See how it works at teensafe.com. Expect it to cost about £10 a month once UK pricing is confirmed.
3 mSpy
This is an app installed on your child’s phone that shows, among other things, phone data, their 10 most common phone contacts and a call log. Its GPS tool can be used to track the whereabouts of the child. According to one parent, it “provided the opportunity to discuss what photos I consider inappropriate and have a discussion about why and how they can be used against her”. Which makes me wonder what sort of parenting was going on before. MSpy has 1.5m subscribers.
What you can see Texts and most messaging services, browser history, photos and videos, GPS location.
How helpful I found that my children spend a lot of time talking in consonants and emoji.
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Get it mspy.com. A premium subscription is just over £11 a month if you sign up for a year.
4 SelfieCop
This Irish product, aimed at the parents of 7- to 13-year-olds, is an app that simply sends you copies of any photo or video taken by your teenager on their smartphone. Do you really want 400 selfies of your daughter? Perhaps not, but if you are worried about the appropriateness of the photos and to whom they are going, this could be for you. SelfieCop styles itself as a tool for teaching “safe behaviour”, by reminding teens that any photo or video they take might be seen by anyone.
What you can see Photos and videos.
How helpful My daughter takes a lot of selfies, but I knew that. My children like watching clips of animals on YouTube, which I had suspected. My son likes taking pictures of forests and bridges.
Get it See a demo at selfiecop.com and download the app free from the Google Play store. Requires both you and your child to have an Android phone.
5 Norton Family
This package from the Norton computer security company allows surveillance of social media and includes the ability to block websites on your child’s devices. It is clever enough to understand the difference between “gun” in the phrases “gun for a school project on the Battle of the Somme” and “I want to buy a gun”.
Tacking a parental surveillance product onto the already vast Norton mothership has made the whole package unnecessarily complicated. Parents are supposed to create an “administrator account” on their computer and then download a separate “user account” onto each device used by their teenager. Frankly, it’s difficult enough to convince your teenager to part with their social media details in the first place (I used monetary encouragement with Gabriel and Honey), let alone making them line up at your desk clutching their devices.
What you can see Websites visited, Facebook profiles but not conversations, WhatsApp addresses but not conversations. Norton Family Premier adds access to YouTube videos seen, texts — though only for Android devices — and device location.
How helpful Logging on is quite difficult, especially for non-Norton customers.
Get it The central software (PC only) can be downloaded free from onlinefamily.norton.com. Premier costs £29.99.
I became Mum 2.0 — and I didn’t much like it
My foray into the world of parental online surveillance taught me several things. First, you can track every text, Facebook post, Instagram picture and WhatsApp chat that your child is sending and receiving simply by downloading apps or software.
Second, in order to do that, you must have the co-operation of your child. Which means that if your child is up to no good online, he or she probably won’t give it.
There is another point too. Unless you believe your child is in danger or at risk from criminals, in which case you must do whatever you think necessary, is it morally acceptable to read all the personal interactions of your child and his or her friends?
I felt uneasy having access to Gabriel and Honey’s online world; it changed me from their mother, with my acknowledged domain in their world, into Big Brother, with the ability to see the personal trivia and tiny social interactions that are part of finding your way in the world as a young person. I didn’t like it. I felt sneaky and, anyway, I didn’t find out anything of note, except that my daughter is planning to acquire a kitten (good luck with that one, darling).
Do we worry too much? A Pew report from 2013 found that while teenagers were relaxed about sharing personal information online (92% post their real name and 53% their email address), they also understand where such data goes — the report said 60% set their Facebook profiles to private. They have learnt from seeing their analogue-born elders stumble in the digital minefield.
In short, teenagers understand what they are doing and use in-jokes and obscure cultural references to encode their chats for those in their own circles.
Will I be subscribing to a parental surveillance tool? No, though I understand why some parents find them reassuring. And I love the fact that my children have lots of friends.