Eye Phone Group smartphone app spies on teen drivers

Your parents might be watching.

Now we find out there's n smartphone app for parents to track their teens' lousy driving habits.

This ultimate tool for helicopter parents comes from Eye Phone Group, a Minneapolis company that develops mobile phone applications.

Its Safety Information Protection System comprises two bits of software. One goes in the teen's smartphone, the other goes in the parent's. Once activated, Big Brother keeps tabs on the kid at all times.

We can see the potential for this thing being huge. As EPG points out, teens are almost 10 times more likely to be in a crash in their first year on the road, compared to adults. And The fatality rate for teen drivers is four times that of adults.

Moms and dads, you want to throw up a virtual boundary around your kid, or know when they're texting? This handy app is there for you. Want an alert whenever your kid drives over 60 mph, or wanders off track? Easy as pie.

But SIPS can't actually stop anyone's kid from doing any of those things. In a way, it merely confirms a parent's worst fears about their teen out on the road -- in real time.

Company president Nathan Ooley calls it a "working and learning tool."

We have to ask: Is it a parental tool, or it torture?

Related: Amanda Manzanares accused of texting as she slammed into motorcycle head-on