Tech Trend 247

When any kid with a smartphone has the ability to create an account on Tinder and start connecting with people, many parents will want to make sure their children aren't doing anything inappropriate.

TeenSafe, a leading phone-monitoring web program for parents who want to be aware of what their kids are doing online, updated Friday to include the ability to monitor Tinder activity. Parents who use TeenSafe can now see if their kid has installed Tinder, their profile, who they've matched with, liked, super liked and skipped. Parents can also see any conversations their child has with other users.

While Tinder is primarily known as a dating or hook-up app, it allows users aged 13-17 to sign up and use it. This demographic makes up about 7% of Tinder users, and this group can only match with other users in the same age range. But there's no saying an underage user can't lie about their age and match with older people.

If conversations struck up through Tinder move off the app and into texting, parents can see those conversations as well. By pulling data from smartphones' backups, TeenSafe allows parents to look at activity like Kik and WhatsApp messages, phone logs, web history and text messages — even if they're deleted.

TeenSafe has been around since 2011, where it began as the first phone-monitoring program that worked with iPhones. The program has gone through numerous iterations to keep up with the latest apps and updates, and has been used by over 1 million parents since it launched, co-founder Scott Walker told Mashable. 

Why do parents need to spy?

"Parents today are raising the first generation of digital natives," Walker said. "Younger and younger kids are getting these devices and don't know the power these devices have. They get themselves into situations that they often need help with."

TeenSafe was created to help parents try to bridge that gap with their digital-native kids.

Parents today are raising the first generation of digital natives

The idea for TeenSafe came from a situation with Walker's own daughter. After a move to a new school, Walker said his daughter seemed off, but continuously said she was fine. Walker used an Android-only phone spying program to find out that she was being bullied pretty badly, so they stopped the move and brought her back to her old school to avoid that bad situation.

TeenSafe can't legally be used on anyone 18 years or older without their consent.

BONUS: Mom shocked about Tinder's hookup culture

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.