Most smartphones these days have GPS-based location services as a standard feature. Location services allow your phone to know where it is so that you can utilize features such as GPS navigation and other location-aware apps.

Many of us are familiar with geotagging pictures and "checking in" at different locations, but geofencing on iPhones provides another check-in tool for parents to keep an eye on their children's location details.

How to Set up Geofence Notifications to Track Your Child on an iPhone

If your child has an iPhone, you can use Apple's very own Find My app (on your iPhone) to track down your child and have geofence-based notifications sent to you when they enter or leave a designated area.

In order to track your child's location, you'll first need to "invite" your child via the Find My app and have them accept your request to see their location status from your iPhone.

You can send them an invitation via the app. Once they approve the connection, you will have access to their current location information unless they hide it from you within the app or disable location services.

There are parental controls available to help prevent kids from disabling the app, but there are no guarantees that the controls will stop them from turning off tracking or their phone.

Once you've invited and been accepted as a "follower" of their location information, then you can set a notification for when they exit or enter a geofence area that you designate.

Unfortunately, you can only set one notification event at a time from your phone.

If you want multiple notifications for several different locations, then you will need to set up recurring notifications from your child's device, as Apple decided that this particular feature was best enabled only by the person allowing tracking and not by the person tracking them.

Setting up Geofence Notifications on Android Phones

Google Family Link is a parental control apps that also includes location tracking and alerts for children's Android and Fitbit devices. You can use the app to set a location and turn on location tracking/sharing.

The Google Family Link app also allows setting up what's called a Family Place, a commonly visited and well-known location like school.

Other third-party solutions with geofencing capabilities for Android include Life 360 or mSpy.

Setting up Geofence Notifications for Other Types of Phones

Even if your child doesn't have an Android device or an iPhone, you may still be able to use location tracking geofencing by subscribing to carrier-based family location services, such as the FamilyWhere service offered by T-Mobile.

Check with your carrier to see what geofence services they offer and which phones are supported.

What Are Geofences?

Geofences are imaginary boundaries that can be set up in location-aware applications.

These boundaries allow users to trigger notifications or other actions when someone with a location-aware device enters or leaves the predetermined area that was established within the location-aware app.

Let's look at some real-world examples of geofences in action.

• Alarm system alerts: Alarm.com allows its customers (with the appropriate subscription) to go to a special web page and draw a geofence around their home or business on a map. They can then have Alarm.com send them a reminder to arm their alarm system remotely when Alarm.com detects that their phone has left the predetermined geofence area.
• Driving app alerts: Some parents use driving apps that include geofencing capabilities to monitor where their teens are going when they take the car. Once installed, these apps allow parents to set allowed areas. Then, when a teen goes outside the allowed area, the parents are notified via a push message.

Apple's Siri Assistant also utilizes geofence technology to allow for location-based reminders. You can tell Siri to remind you to let the dogs out when you get home and she will use your location and the area around your home as a Geofence to trigger the reminder.

There are potential privacy and security implications regarding the use of geofence applications, but when you're a parent trying to keep up with your children, you likely don't care about those issues.