Security or invasion of privacy? MobilMine from Motolingo monitors mobile usage

Every once in a while a mobile service comes along that has truly staggering potential for invasion of privacy. These services are often extremely useful in terms of family safety or field-employee monitoring. But the “Big Brother” use they can be put to makes me nervous. Todays offering is MobilMine Pro from Motolingo, a service that monitors, records and reports on calls, emails and texts from your device. Or your childs device. Or your employees device.

The application records usage history, including calls, emails, and text messages. This information is filed in reports which can be emailed to you daily, weekly or monthly. It runs in the background, quietly monitoring your communications. For the moment, the app only runs on Windows Mobile devices.

From the release:

Motolingo President Charles Nesser: “The cellphone has become our communication tool of choice, and until now there has not been an easy and cost-effective way to document and archive those communications. With MobilMine Pro, you can recall every communication, view content sent via text messaging, and prevent wireless plan overages. Because you configure MobilMine to send collected data to any email address, others using phones you own, such as employees, a spouse, and children, will become more productive and connected as well. One team member was able to use MobilMine to review a text message sent by her son’s prom date so that he could buy a corsage to match the dress she’d be wearing. While at a trade show, I negotiated a new hire’s compensation via text message confident that I could retrieve the data later. I even send weekly usage reports to my wife to help her get a handle on our family’s cellphone expense. I think we’re going to see folks come up with some innovative uses for MobilMine Pro.”

What we think?

When I was a teenager, if I knew my parents would read my every text and listen to every call, I would never have used my phone. I can see the value behind a product like this, but its implementation is quite likely to stop people from using those functions that are being monitored. No one likes being watched 24/7.