Frequently Asked Questions

ChildFinda is a secure phone app for Child safety and your peace of mind.  Whether you have younger children going to school or older young people travelling or driving cars; ChildFinda sends you a message letting you know your child has arrived safely* at their destination...and when they may later depart for elsewhere or home.  You can view their location at any time.  ChildFinda also lets the 'Child' user Check-in at anytime or see where their Folks are.  This builds trust with your kids.

ChildFinda helps child safety by alerting you to where your kids are; in a timely manner.

ChildFinda is a phone app that operates on Android and Apple phones.  It uses built-in technology to identify an approximate location of a mobile phone and if that phone arrives within a 'geo-fenced' area you have set up, like a school ground, then ChildFinda sends you a message of that arrival and subsequent departure.  The data is secure and as a fail-safe is not retained once it is used and not needed.  This does two things, 1. make the app more secure and 2. saves me having to keep a bunch of unnecessary data.

ChildFinda is owned by me and is not a large corporate thing.  It is local in Australia, however, will show locations overseas but not overseas addresses.  However, you can identify places overseas which is handy when older kids travel.  Not that they will be travelling o/s for a while except to visit Kwis :-)

*ChildFinda alerts to a phone's location and assumes its with the designated user.  Also helps if a phone is lost.

ChildFinda allows you to create a family of users and geofenced locations we call Places, that will notify you if and when your child arrives or leaves an area.  The child device will keep you updated on their locations and you can see their last location on the Apple or Android app map, anytime.

ChildFinda is a simple secure smartphone app.  Its easy to install on your phone and your children's and partner's phone(s).  Just add Places, like where they go to school, after school care, friends places, sport etc.  Then set arrive and depart triggers, on your phone, and ChildFinda will let you know when your child arrives or departs any location.

You can also install ChildFinda on your Partner's phone so they can also receive notifications and you can see where they are :-).  Don't worry this can be turned off for grownups if they wish to be invisible.  You can set Places to let you know when your Partner arrives.  Really handy when travelling or commuting.

ChildFinda uses the phone's built-in location ability to update locations and compare to the places, and if there is a match then ChildFinda sends you a message. 

ChildFinda was developed in Australia by a Brisbane based team, and its data is held on a secure server.  Being a Child safety app, we are very concerned about security.  Privacy is paramount and where children are concerned, even more so.  All information is secure; protected by encription or other strategies.

To go one step further, and add another layer of protection; after a location message has been sent, and when it is no longer needed, it is deleted.  Minimial location history is kept.  Even if we wanted to, or were required to by a Government authority; we cannot reveal any location history that has been deleted.

• ChildFinda is new having been released during Aug 2020.  Hopefully we have all the bugs out.  You being an early adopter of ChildFinda; I would appreciate any feed back.  Please text Tony on 0408763663
• Download the app from Google Play or the Apple Store
• Creat a free Account using an email address so we can email you secure information (two step authentication)
• Once you have created an account You are now the Champion [Parent] user.  You can now add a second user (Child or Adult Partner)
• Add second user by clicking the + at the top right of the map screen then click the person icon.  Fill in the form with the second users details, name ID (phone number) and create a password for them.  Then scroll down and click the Add button.  You will be prompted with a text you can send to the second user with their ID (phone number) and their password.  They will be asked to download the app and log in with their phone number and the password you sent them.  Please note: All users should allow location services 'Always' especially in Apple phones; and ask all users to check-in once a day say first thing in the morning.  This will keep the app quietly running in the background.  
• Add Places your Kids go like school, friends, sport, beach.  ChildFinda will send you an alert message when they arrive at these places and leave.  These alerts can be toggled on and off if desired.
• Add Places by clicking on the + button top right of screen and click the location icon.  Enter an address to search for a location or scroll the map around to see the location and tap the map to create a Place location.  Then set the location radius (geo fence).  The default radius is 400m but you can reduce this down to 100m the first time you set up the place.  This lets ChildFinda know to message you when someone arrives or departs.  Please note: the radius setting can only be reduced below 400m during the first adding of that place.  If you wish to reduce the radius below 400m later on then delete the Place and set a new one, in the same location, with a reduced radius.  Also note that a narrow radius may give false messages for departures or arrivals as the GPS signal may shift between cell towers outside of the radius.  You can try different radius to see what works best for you.  Final note, whew, please set a wider radius to cover large places like their school so when your Kids move around the school they don't give false alerts.  Again, experiment for whats the best radius for you.  Example; at one school the local servo was accross the road so we reduced the school radius a bit and gave the servo a separate Place.  Kids used to stop in the servo on their way home.
• Add more Places anytime and more People as needed.  ChildFinda is Free for the first and second users.  You can login to your account via the app or web page to upgrade to have unlimited users.  Payment is secure via PayPal and costs $1 per week 
• Manage Account to upgrade if you wish to add more users
• If you get stuck call me, Tony, on 0408763663 :-) 

ChildFinda is free for the first two users, typically you and a child or partner.  It also has a free introductory period of 7 days for unlimited users so you can mak esure you are be happy with the app before paying anything.  

You can easily upgrade to an unlimited number of people: you, partner, kids, grandparents, friends...@$1 per week; billed monthly via PayPal.  The Full Circle for unlimited users is free during the introductory period of the first 7 days.  You can unsubscribe at any time via your PayPal account.

• From the map screen click the + button in the top right-hand corner, then click the blue person icon
• Fill in the form with First Name, Surname, Mobile No. and Password (that you choose) and select the Type of new user: Child (Default) or Adult
• Select Notifications, of Alerts, on arrival or departure (default is to be notified on arrivals and departures)
• Select Notify user 'Yes' and you will see an SMS you can send to the new user asking them to download and install ChildFinda
• Return to the Home screen

• From the map (Home) screen click the + button in the top right-hand corner, then click the blue location icon
• Type an address in the Search or Enter Address box
• Click the displayed address
• Also, you can zoom in or out on the map and scroll to find a location for the new Place then poke the screen to set the green location icon
• If you dont know the address try searching by Town or Suburb, click the location and scroll the map with your finger to see your location then touch the map to place the green location icon
• Zoom in with your fingers and fine adjust the location by poking the screen...moving the green location icon
• Enter a Place Nickname
• Set the radius by sliding the dot on the bar, note default size 400m which you can reduce once only during inital down to 100m 
• Click Add
• Return to the Home screen

ChildFinda sits quietly in the background waiting to send an alert when needed.  If the app sees no movement for too long, say several hours, then the phone operating system will close ChildFinda.  A simple Check In brings the app back online.  Also Users may choose to close the app say in the evenings when they are home and its not needed.  Checking-In first thing in the morning or on the way to school ensures ChildFinda is doing its job.

By Checking-In a child can show you where they may be waiting [any location] for you to arrive to pick them up.  Checking-In updates their current location which you can see on the map screen.    

ChildFinda was developed in Australia by a Brisbane based team, and its data is held on a secure server.  Being a Child safety app, we are very concerned about privacy, which is paramount.  Minimal personal information is requested, name, phone number and maybe email.

Notwithstanding this, information is kept in a secure database  protected by encription or other strageties.   To go one step further and add another layer of protection; after a location message has been sent, and no longer needed, it is deleted.  Minimal, if any, location history is kept.  Even if we wanted to, or were required to by a Government authority; we cannot reveal any location history that has been deleted.

You can access ChildFinda by downloading the app on Apple Store or Google Play.  Access can also be via the web client. 

ChildFinda is a smartphone application.  It has been developed to run on Apple devices running iOS versions 10.0 or later and on Android devices running Android 4.4 or later.

ChildFinda is free to use on your phone and one other device (phone).  You can upgrade your account to 'unlimited' meaning you can install ChildFinda on many phones for additional children, partners, Grandparents, family friends or large groups of people.  Click the Manage Account on the Menu in the App to upgrade.

Any geo-loation application will use battery power.  ChildFinda has minimised the number of times it checks its location so minimises battery usage.  Also when the phone is resting ChildFinda does not check its location as it knows where it is, because it is not moving.  Clever app.

To save battery usage even further, users can easliy close the app, buy flicking off your phone, when its not needed, like when kids are at home.  Children, or Partners, can close the app when they arrive home from school.  Simply have the children, or partner, open the app or Check-in each morning.  There is also an age appropiate daily joke that may bring a simle to kids faces.  Reading the joke opens ChildFinda.  

The app Settings allows you to make your device (phone) visible to Child devices.  Default setting is visible.

You can also change the Circle Name in Settings.  Just type a new circle name and click Update...then log out and log back into ChildFinda on each device.

Go to the app Settings and enter a new Circle Name and click update then logout and log back in on each phone.