With millions of preteens and teenagers carrying mobile phones, instances of cyber-stalking, cyber-bullying and ?sexting? are on the rise, and has resulted in everything from the prosecution of children and parents to teen suicide. 

To help parents protect their children from these ?mobile assaults,? SMobile Systems has unveiled the latest version of its Parental Controls and Monitoring service to now include GPS tracking and picture monitoring.

Mobile Marketer interviewed Neil Book, CEO of SMobile Systems. Here is what he said.

What is the strategy here?
SMobile?s goal in developing the Parental Controls Dashboard is to give parents a similar set of tools to monitor their kids? mobile activities as they have with programs like NetNanny and other Internet solutions for monitoring their personal computers.

The strategy behind SMobile?s Parental Control Dashboard is prevention.

The software gives parents the ability to protect their children by supervising their mobile activities to help ensure that they do not engage in or become a victim of cyber-stalking, cyber-bullying, and ?sexting? (sending sexually explicit images or text messages).

The dashboard capabilities such as GPS tracking and picture monitoring, gives parents the tools they need to protect pre-adult users, preventing unwanted mobile activities before they escalate into any form of ?mobile assaults.?

What challenges will this address and for whom?
The Parental Control software addresses the challenge for parents to supervise and safeguard children/teenagers from cyber threats on mobile devices.

There is a perception that if we put parental control software on our desktops at home, we are protecting our children from online assaults.

In reality, millions of preteens and teenagers are carrying cell phones, which are just as powerful as personal computers, equipped with digital cameras and video recorders.

SMobile?s new dashboard allows parents to define and set keyword alerts, view the people contacting their child, utilize remote location services, monitor pictures, images and messages sent to and from their child?s phone.

These mobile security measures enable parents to provide the same safety precautions for their children on the move, as they do in the walls of their own homes.

Why the need for this?
With millions of preteens and teenagers carrying mobile phones, instances of cyber-stalking, cyber-bullying and ?sexting? are on the rise, and have resulted in everything from the prosecution of children and parents to teen suicide. 

- On March 18, a Florida girl was brutally beaten by a boy, and is now in a medically-induced coma. This incident allegedly stemmed from text-messaging.

- In Iowa, Jorge Canal is on the sex offender?s registry because, at age 18, he was convicted of distributing obscene materials to a minor after he sent a picture of his penis by mobile phone to a 14-year-old female friend who had requested it. 

- A 2009 survey conducted for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found that 19 percent of teens had sent, received or forwarded nude or nearly nude photos through text message or email.

- In the U.S. 43 percent of teens report that they have been cyber bullied over the past year.

These are only a few examples of the physical, mental and legal repercussions that are consequences of mobile activities in the smart phone era.

SMobile?s Parental Control Dashboard is a necessity for parents and supervisors to be able to protect their children from becoming a victim of mobile assaults in the increasingly dangerous mobile world.

What are your recommendations for parents?
SMobile Systems recommend that parents talk to their children and loved ones about the serious consequences of sending pictures, explicit messages and videos on their mobile phones.

Children and teenagers are often times unaware of the serious repercussions that a video, picture, or message sent via mobile phone can have, even if they think it?s just for fun, or that it?s safe because it is being sent to someone they love.

Discuss the reality of becoming a registered sex offender, having your personal pictures displayed to entire school, or becoming a victim of a physical assault stemming from a simple text.