The Invisible Chaperone: Keeping Your Children Safe

Back in April, a teenager from New York visited Myrtle Beach for spring break and hasn't been seen since. 17-year old Brittane Drexel's parents and loved ones did all they could to look for her. She was on a trip her mother had forbidden. Activity on her cell phone and ATM card stopped and Brittane has not been seen since.

Some parents are taking high tech steps all in an effort to protect their child from something this tragic.

It may seem like just another text message coming through on Greg Martin's phone, but this one's alerting him that his 15-year old daughter, Whitney, just left school.

"It's a 40 minute drive and so along the way back and forth, I can check on her, not necessarily saying she's doing something she's not supposed to do, but I've got it there just in case something happens," explains Martin.

Martin has set zones. One is around the school. Another is around their house and a third around Whitney's boyfriend's house.

He receives a text every time she enters or leaves each area. Martin can also create new zones in a matter of 2 to 3 minutes.

“If she's going to be traveling, like going to the grandparent's or something like that, I can still keep track of her when she's in Atlanta,” adds Martin.

“So, you could type in ex-boyfriend's house and have that as a no-zone and find out if she came or went from that area?” I ask.

“Yeah. I can just go in, they have a nation wide map, and I can set up a new zone, just online I can set up all the zones and then I can monitor those zones from either a home computer, a laptop on Wi-Fi or my cell phone,” Martin details.

And martin's not monitoring his daughter because she's a bad kid.

"I think it's good, not necessarily not to keep a thumb on top of your kids, I mean, I trust my kids but I can't trust everybody else's out there,”

If Martin doesn't know where his daughter is, he can track her phone and get directions to her location.

“I'm kind of glad they didn't have it when I was a kid. The old I'm gonna stay at so-and-so's house and they're saying that they're going to stay with them and then going to a 3rd person's house, isn't going to wind up being able to do that any more,” he laughs.

And for those who say a teen would just leave the phone to avoid being caught?

“My answer to that is well, you don't get 15-16 thousand text messages a month by leaving your phone somewhere,” he adds with another laugh.

The Chaperone is priced at $9.99 per month. It’s something Martin says is well worth the money.

The GPS tracking device does not work if the phone is off or if someone is on the phone being tracked.