Concept: Israeli cyber-tech startup Keepers Child Safety (Keepers) has launched an app ‘Parental Control & Location Tracker’ that allows parents to monitor their children’s online activity. It can identify unexpected behavior and protect their digital wellbeing, all without invading their privacy.

Nature of Disruption: Keepers parental control app lets parents access the specific messages that are identified as potentially dangerous. It monitors the incoming and outgoing messaging on social media platforms and child’s smartphones. Its phrases detection database leverages AI and ML that can automatically track any suspicious, abusive, or inappropriate content. The app is featured with a natural language processing (NLP) algorithm that recognizes emotion from text and chats. It can alert parents in real-time if their child is being abused or threatened. Parents can use the app’s dynamic dictionary to add or remove inappropriate words as per the child’s needs. The web filtering feature can be used to block inappropriate or unsafe content. The app can track the child’s device location, allowing parents to create GPS safe and unsafe zones. It shares live and instant updates of the child’s proximity and sends alerts to parents if their children have entered into any specified danger zone. Children cannot uninstall the app without their parent’s consent.

Outlook: The Internet has become a dangerous neighborhood for children and teens. Often, young children are at risk of abuse and exploitation from cyber-predators to social media posts. Negligence is one of the causes that children get into the abusive chain. Keepers claims that its parental control app is a perfect tool for child safety, providing complete control to parents over their child’s activity. It aims to help children fulfill their potential without being distracted by online threats while giving parents peace of mind.

This article was originally published in Verdict.co.uk