3rd Party Software for monitoring a child's HTC 8x?

[NotAWindowsFan]

Hi everyone,

I've seen similar threads on this, but most seem more interested in blocking access rather than monitoring activity.

My son has been given an HTC 8x with 4G access by his other (remote) parent. I'm required to carefully monitor his web usage and communications as he has a history of doing illegal things and admits to wishing to harm others. Before anyone gives me difficulty about this, I'll be clear: if it were up to me he'd have a flip phone with some serious restrictions on it. It's not up to me. My job is merely to care for him, provide for him, discipline him and supervise him. I don't get to tell his other parent that she cannot give him a smart phone or what smart phone she should give him. He wanted a windows phone specifically because of the lack of effective parental control and monitoring software. I can take it away for short periods of time for specific infractions of rules, but if I take it away for "no good reason" I'm disturbing and devaluing his relationship with his mother.

The computer I'm dealing with mostly at the router. With 4G this isn't an option. I've also double checked with the carrier. They can list phone calls and text messages, but that's all they can list. That information goes to his mother. She keeps telling me against all logic that they will send it to me if I just call and explain that I'm his parent. They won't. I did try. They cannot monitor web usage, IM, or Skype.

I don't wish to block any web sites. It's not even the usual porn sites that I'm worried about. But I do need to know what he's up to. Not just which websites he's visiting, but also who he's chatting, instant messaging and skyping with. Content of chats, etc would be useful in intervening before he harms some other child, as well as to have something to take to his therapist and other people who are trying intervene to protect him and others. Just being able to see who and when would be better than nothing. Part of why I hate this phone is that unlike his computer, I can be in the same room as him while he victimizes another child and I don't even have a way of knowing, as I cannot see his phone display in the way that I can see his monitor.

There are multiple apps for Android and iOS with this functionality. All the third party apps I can find for Windows Phones either only support much older versions of Windows or only block websites or other functions/apps.

Anyone know of any 3rd party applications that would provide the monitoring I need in this situation and work on a HTC 8x running Windows 8?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Ashish Saraf1]

AFAIK android has maany spy software which can hide themselves and provide the ssites as well as keystrokes...Windows phone doesn not have any because of many restrictions !!

 

[Localhorst86]

Hello,

let's first answer the primary question:

No, there is no software that will allow you to monitor what your son is doing on his phone. Third party apps are sandboxed and they do not know about the existence of, let alone access other apps. Also, there is no built in function to allow this. The only "monitoring" built in would be location service, where you can locate your sons phone using the windowsphone.com website. This will require you to have access to his windows live credentials, though, which would in term allow you to monitor his outlook and skype protocolls so I guess you do not have access to this, either.

Since this answer itself is and can not be satisfactory to you (given by the implications given in your post) you have to consider a few things. Please bear in mind that even though I am going to ask a few questions, you will not have to answer them should you not feel comfortable with disclosing this information. These questions are intended to be answered first and foremost to yourself to help you figure out a sollution.

- How old is your son? Or more to the point: I assume he is still a minor, most likely an adolescent, correct?

- You imply that your son has been in trouble with the law due to some of his actions. Are we talking about offences or straight up felonies? I am not going to ask about the nature of the offences or felonies as one particular phrasing in your post makes it sound like a very delicate subject. Just to get a general idea of how bad an issue we're talking about (I assume it's really bad)

- You also mention that you are required to monitor your sons communication and web usage. Are you legaly obliged to do this (as in court order) or do you simply feel it to be your moral duty towards the community? Either way, what is the mothers responsibility/stance on this? Would she not also legaly or moraly be forced to monitor her sons activity? Is she actively supporting his unlawful behaviour or just unaware or unconcerned? I feel the second part of this question to be very important as it can tell how the actions of his mother can undo all your efforts.

- If it was court ordered, what legal framework were you given? I somehow feel that a court can not order you to do this without giving you proper instructions on how to achieve this or to what extent you have to take action yourself (as in at which point you actively fulfilled your monitoring duty). Also, I'd assume a court should have to give you appropriate legal rights to enforce such control measures, i.e. allow you to actually forbid your son from getting a smartphone or even take it away for good (not just short intervals). There have been cases in my country were offenders were simply not allowed to use Facebook or Instant Messaging, their profiles were deleted and an infraction - should it ever come to light - would have serious repercusions (sp?) like major jailtime etc. I can see how a court could also order for bans on certain technology (especially connected devices like smartphones and computers) and I am wondering why they didn't.

- While the EU court has just yesterday ruled that data retention without suspicion is illegal inside the EU, a probable cause, mandated by the court, can still allow data retention to take place. EU countries can still make their own laws regarding data retention either way. While this can unfortunatelly hardly prevent any crimes (despite what politicians in my country are trying to tell everyone) they can at least help solve them quicker or before someone seriously gets hurt.

 

[o0Nighthawk0o]

I am guessing that the mother has primary custody of the son. If this is the case the ONLY thing you have to provide for him, when he is with you is the ability to communicate with his mother. You are well within your rights, as his parent, to confiscate the phone whenever he is with you as long as you provide some other way for him to contact his mother and a means for her to contact him be it a cell phone or land line.

What I would do is get a cheap flip phone and whenever he is with you, switch the sim card from the smart phone to the flip phone and he uses the flip phone for the duration of his stay. I would also tell the mother that she needs to authorize the carrier to allow you to talk to them about your son's phone usage.

With kids now days it doesn't matter what type of smart phone you have or what monitoring apps you put on it, they will find a way around it. If they can't themselves, they will find someone who can do it for them.

 

[Games Goblin]

What you are trying to accomplish is impossible on windows phone from what knowledge I have of the OS. This backed with the fact that your son is using cellular data.

If you really want to monitor his activity, I guess android would be the way to go.

Posted via the WPC App for Android!

 

[ratsttam]

As a father (and the one paying the bill), the requirement is that my son has to hand over his device with little or no warning, whenever I feel like, so that I can see the chat logs, history, etc. Any unusual behavior (cleared or abnormally short browser history) is questioned.

Technology enabled, but not parently disabled

edit: My bad. I didn't catch the part that he's not with you all the time. That complicates things considerably with my scenario, and is certainly NOT saying anything bad about you not being able to personally monitor the usage.
There isn't much you can do to monitor deeply what goes on with WP at this time. If you have access to the Microsoft account, you can probably see any pictures that were taken (as they get uploaded to onedrive), and texts (are they still backed up to outlook.com??).

 

[NotAWindowsFan]

Thanks everyone for your responses. It is useful to know that my research was correct and there is no software that will allow this. I will look at windowsphone.com and see what can be done with that.

He does live here full time, with occasional visits with his mother. While he bragged to me that he had insisted on the HTC 8x because he knew I couldn't monitor his usage well with it, I do not believe he told his mother this. She's not terribly technology savvy and I doubt she had any clue that this was going to be an issue. Now she's stuck with the contract. I do have a cheap flip phone for him, but he ignores it in favor of the HTC 8x. I can hardly criticize that.

He routinely clears history. He previously had his mother convinced that he wasn't doing some of the things he was doing because she didn't know to be suspicious of the fact that there was effectively no history at all. That's why the internet access logging is done at the network level here, because I assume that anything on his computer is potentially compromised. I also have all his passwords, which helps some.

LocalHorst86 -- Your questions are spot on. I won't answer them publically for exactly the reasons you mention, but I think you have gotten the general idea of the situation. I may need to consult with a lawyer to sort out what is legally required and what is not. We have multiple different jurisdictions in multiple (US) states involved, and some conflicting orders, or things that might be orders that I signed when he was most recently released, but I'm currently not sure how legally binding they are or if they are legally binding on his mother. I take it on faith that if he is indicted the prosecutors will be able to provide copies of chats or other data, but the goal is to keep it from getting to that point, at least until he's got a few years of therapy under his belt. In a few years he'll be an adult and whatever he does he will have to reap the consequences of, but until then it's my job to provide him the help and guidance that might get him off of this road that he seems determined to travel.

Thank you, everybody who responded. This has been useful and now I know it's time to take some other steps.