新款應用程序可助父母找到失蹤小孩

It's a parent's worst nightmare. Their child doesn't come home one evening and is missing for several days.

如果有一天晚上，自己的孩子沒有回家，然後接下去幾天都蹤跡全無。這對父母來說，是最可怕的噩夢。

When a 14-year-old boy from Atlanta, Georgia disappeared earlier this year, his mother turned to her smartphone for clues using an app called Family Tracker that helped track his location.

一個來自美國佐治亞州亞特蘭大市的14歲男孩今年早些時候失蹤了，他的母親用自己智能手機上的一款名爲“家庭追蹤系統”的程序來幫助找出他所在的方位。

It is one of several apps that allow parents to track the whereabouts of their children.

這是讓父母能追蹤孩子所在地的幾款應用程序之一。

"You can see where your loved ones are without having to call or bother them," said Roberto Franceschetti of LogSat, the creators of the Family Tracker, which has more than 100,000 users and is available worldwide.

這種“家庭追蹤系統”是由LogSat公司創建的。該公司的羅伯託•弗郎西舍提說：“你無需打電話或打擾孩子就能知道你心愛的寶貝在哪裏。”這一系統有超過10萬用戶，可在全球範圍內使用。

Parents can track the location of their child on a map, send messages, and even activate an alarm on the phone remotely.

父母們可以追蹤到孩子在地圖上的位置，可以發信息，甚至能遠程激活電話上的警報器。

"We have an option for the sender to make a very nasty, noisy sound. It's a loud siren and we repeat that sound every two minutes until the person picks up," he said.

他說：“我們提供讓發送者啓動非常刺耳、吵鬧的聲音的選項。這是一種很響亮的警報聲，我們每兩分鐘就會重複一次這種響聲，直到接收者接電話爲止。”

Parents don't need to own a smartphone to track their children. The service is also accessible via the web, as long as the phone that is being tracked is running the app, which runs on an iPhone or Android devices.

父母們沒有智能手機也能追蹤自己的小孩。這項服務也可以從網上獲得，只要被追蹤的手機運行這一程序即可。該程序在iPhone或Android系統的手機上都可以運行。

Family Tracker has an additional service that keeps a log of all data generated by the app for a two-week period, which the company calls GPS breadcrumbs.

“家庭追蹤系統”還有一項服務，能保存該應用程序在兩週內產生的所有數據記錄，公司將其稱爲“GPS麪包屑”功能。

The service was used to find the missing boy in Atlanta.

該服務被用於尋找亞特蘭大的失蹤男孩。

"With a subscription, we keep all the locations where people have been on our servers. You can see where your kid has been for the past two weeks. You can find out where someone was at a certain time, or when that person was at a specific place," Franceschetti explained.

弗郎西舍提解釋說：“只要您預訂這一服務，我們就能爲您保存服務器上所有的行蹤數據。您可以看到過去兩週內您的孩子曾去過的地方。您可以查明某人在特定時間所在的地方，或者某人出現在特定地方的時間。”

"When somebody gets abducted, usually whoever does this throws the phone away or takes the battery out. We were hoping that our app would at least provide information on where the person was abducted or where they had been in the past, that way the police would have a history or some clues as to who they may have been seeing."

“如果某人被劫持了，通常劫持者會把手機扔掉，或將電池取出。我們希望我們的應用程序至少能提供劫持發生地，或被劫持者曾到過哪些地方等信息，這樣警察對於被劫持者可能見過的人會有些線索，或能從檔案獲知。”

But are these types of apps an invasion of privacy?

但是這種類型的應用程序是否侵犯了隱私權呢？

"The advantages are huge compared to the disadvantages. Let's not forget that the person always has to give initial permission — no one can be tracked unless they allow someone to do it," said Franceschetti.

弗郎西舍提說：“相比壞處而言，好處要多得多。不要忘了首先都得獲得被追蹤者的許可才行——除非自己允許他人這麼做，否則誰也無法被追蹤。”