Track your staff using their mobiles

2003.1225

Only you better tell them first, as Mapaphone and 192.com point out...

Several web-based services have been announced this week that allow the tracking of mobile phones across the UK. The idea is that keeping tabs on a phone invariably allows someone to keep tabs on its owner, whether that's a teenage child out for the evening or a delivery driver late for his next pick-up.

Mapaphone marries tracking with online maps at www.mapminder.co.uk that also feature hotels, restaurants and other places of interest. The maps alone are of a high quality.

Meanwhile directory enquiries stalwart 192.com has brought out Phone Track, which is billed as "a simpler, more portable and lower cost alternative to GPS satellite location systems".

Both systems rely on triangulating positions using the GSM cellular network of operators O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone.

Such offerings have been talked about for some time - often alongside tabloid hype of 'monitoring where any mobile phone user is' - but the providers claim to have covered off legal loopholes.

For example, employers must get written permission from employees they wish to monitor, consent which is then double checked via a text message to the phone in question in Mapaphone's case.

While the 192.com service looks to the consumer as much as the business user - one piece of advertising reads: "Is your daughter still at her friend’s house? Because the service is discreet she will not be embarrassed with her peers thinking you are checking up on her" - Mapaphone is firmly in the business space.

It integrates with Outlook contact details and there are group facilities for teams in the field and web-to-mobile text messaging, at 7p each SMS, for contacting colleagues.

Mapaphone costs £10 per phone per month, including five free 'polls' per month (20p each thereafter) and mapminder.co.uk separately costs £2.95 per month.

192.com's offering costs £5 per month plus VAT, including 10 free polls, with a minimum six-month sign-up and extra credits for polls at 20-50p each.