You’re driving home from work on a regular Thursday night. After a busy shift at work you can’t wait to crawl into bed and get a good night’s sleep before you’re back at school the next morning. You glance in your rearview mirror and see a car – a car that has been following you for your last few turns. You begin to worry – should I make a few weird turns and try and throw him off? What did I do if he’s still following me when I get to my house? Then, just as suddenly the car appeared, it disappears and you begin to realize you panicked for nothing. Little do you realize that the device where anyone could be stalking you is sitting in the cup holder next to you – your beloved cell phone.

We think we are protected as long as our social media accounts are on private and we don’t put any personal information in our biographies, yet we often don’t think of the other apps we use everyday and our cell phones themselves being easily used to monitor and track our location. Parents tracking their children plays a huge part in this and it’s something that happens extremely often with today’s advancing technology.

Whether it’s ourselves or a friend, it seems as if almost everyone we know is being tracked by their parents. Some parents are honest with their children, and let them know they monitor their every move. Other parents do it more discreetly. Parents and their children need to have an open, honest conversation about today’s technology tracking.

Many kids may not be too fond the idea of being tracked, while parents may worry about their child’s whereabouts in an unpredictable world. Privacy is important and we would imagine plenty of other people feel the same way. No matter who you are or what you do, you have a right to personal privacy. Technology tracking is an invasion of privacy no matter the extent to which one is tracked. The respectful thing to do is be aware of the privacy of the person being tracked, so it’s important that parents set boundaries and be aware of their children’s privacy.

We are all bound to make mistakes, and it’s these mistakes that shape who we are. If your parents want to try and stop you from making inevitable mistakes by tracking you, so be it. But, it’s vital that parents are honest with their children about this for the sake of their relationship.