‘Bark' phone helps defend children against online predators
500,000 are active each day and each year, one in five children receives an unwanted online sexual solicitation.
Hiland Park Elementary host Leadership Day
Panama City Beach Police are hoping to educate parents on how to prevent their child from becoming a victim.
'This coming Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., we're hosting our second annual well, I'll say our second seminar this year for Parents Against Predators. It's going to be at Arnold High School. We're going to be teaching parents how to keep their kids safe online,' Panama City Beach Police Chief J.R. Talamantez said.
The Bark Company is co-sponsoring the seminar. The company has developed a phone to help parents monitor their child's online activity.
'It is open the box, hand it to your kid, and know right off the bat that that kid is going to have the most effective online safety tools currently in the market available to them,' Talamantez said.
Bark cell phones look like normal Android phones, but have pre-installed software that scans text messages, 30+ social media apps, web browsers, emails, and more. If it detects any suspicious activity, it immediately alerts parents.
'Their software and their devices help parents monitor dangerous behavior that their kids might be partaking in online. Whether it's keywords, whether it is dangerous searches on the internet, this software helps parents identify that quickly and in real-time,' Talamantez said.
Oldest Baptist church in Florida turns 200 next month
Officials say the bark phones and educated parents offer the best defense against online predators.
'We want them to be more aware and more alert, so this conversation that they have with their kid, they'll be a little bit more prepared for it because we're going to teach them about the threat, and we're going to provide them with a solution, if they don't have one already, on how to introduce technology to their kid,' Talamantez said.
Officers plan to engage a predator online during the seminar. For more information, click here.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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