ZoneAlarm SocialGuard: Monitoring your kids’ Facebook accounts

SocialGuard appears to work as advertised, but it’s certainly not a fool-proof solution to monitoring your kids’ Facebook activities.

I recently came across a program called ZoneAlarm SocialGuard by Check Point who claims it:

Protects against cyberbullies, strangers, and dangerous links

Safeguards more effectively than “friending” your child

Alerts you immediately – even if you don’t use Facebook

The way it works is you install the program on your computer, have your kids sign into it with their Facebook credentials and then install the SocialGuard app to their Facebook accounts.

Once everything has been set up, SocialGuard continuously monitors your kids’ Facebook accounts and alerts you to any activity which may be a cause for concern such as your child being friended by a stranger or by a person who is older than they claim to be or posting inappropriate links related to sex or drugs, for example. The program currently costs $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year.

Check Point says that SocialGuard preserves “reasonable privacy for your kids.” It doesn’t enable parents to access their kids’ Facebook accounts or to see all material that is posted – instead, parents are only alerted to “red flag” events such as those mentioned above.

How well does SocialGuard work? I haven’t actually tried the app, but Neil J. Rubenking over at PCMag has and says:

ZoneAlarm SocialGuard tracks your children’s Facebook accounts and reports on actual problems. Parents can see who the child’s friends are, but they don’t get access to posts, comments, photos, and so on. It offers a good balance between protection and privacy.

So it seems SocialGuard works as advertised. Despite this, I wouldn’t use the program and here’s why. Firstly, it’s basically voluntary. Any kid could avoid being monitored simply by disabling the app or by creating a secondary Facebook account without their parents’ knowledge. Consequently, it’s really no more effective than setting simple rules: thou shalt not connect with strangers, for example. The second problem is that SocialGuard currently only works with Facebook – not with Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Chatroulette, or the myriad of other social networks and chat apps – and so its functionality is extremely limited.

To my mind, while it makes sense to use a web filtering solution such as OpenDNS to block inappropriate content, the same cannot be said of parental control programs. In my opinion, there really is no substitute for parental involvement, discussion and education – and for creating a set of common-sense rules that your kids understand.

Agree or disagree? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Sources: ZoneAlarm.com and PCMag.com