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To many kids, it may a fun thing: Their own cell phone, complete with a backpack shaped like a stuffed animal to house the global positioning technology that makes it all happen.

That at least is the vision of Susanne Mueller-Zantop, under whose guidance Siemens has developed a child's mobile phone with stepped-up monitoring capability.

"I want us to apply technology in a smart way to have kids participate in what we enjoy about mobile life," she said. "We don't want parents to force the devices on their kids. We want kids to happily carry them with them. That's why I talk a lot about fun. It must be playful."

Tests begin this month in Germany, where 50 families have agreed to take part, and the service is scheduled to debut in Germany and Great Britain next spring. Expected to cost between $100 and $200 for the hardware, and less than $20 a month for the service, the devices are intended for children between the ages of 3 and 11.

It may be appropriate that the first tests are in the Munich area, although Siemens also plans to offer the service in Hamburg and Berlin. West Germans have traditionally had more access to technology than their counterparts in the former East, some of whom are used to seeing high-tech monitoring devices as something to be feared.

"There is a little feeling of 'Big Brother is watching,'" said Maxim Leo, a 30-year-old lifelong East Berliner. "In the Eastern times, until '89, it wasn't necessary to have such electronic control of things, because there was a wall and the child couldn't go very far."

But Leo, father of a 6-month-old baby girl, thinks that the new idea from Siemens could have practical applications.

"I think for older children, around 10 or 11 years old, it could be a good thing. I heard about children who go into discos at a very young age. If you have the possibility to know where your child is, it could be a good thing. But for very young children, I don't know if it's really a good solution."

Mueller-Zantop, mother of a 10-year-old boy, said her inspiration in developing the project started out being personal.

"I once had a terrible day because there was that Swissair plane crash and I had evidence that my son was on that plane, but I couldn't reach him," she said. "That was the worst day of my life. He wasn't on the plane, but it was terrifying until I was able to talk to him."

How does it work? Every 15 minutes, the child's phone communicates exact coordinates to a call center. Parents can phone into the call center to get information about their children's whereabouts.

A child can hit a button, providing instant location information to the call center which, in emergencies, can listen in on whatever the child's handset is picking up.

As a Siemens statement explains: "The call center has personal sets of data stored about children participating in the service. The data ranges from a variety of important phone numbers like parents, school, relatives, etc., to information about the need for special medication or the ability to swim in deep water."

This is, admittedly, an idea in progress. Mueller-Zantop and Siemens call this the "Leonie Project," and the word "project" is important. "We call it a project because we know we have to learn from the kids," she said. "It's kind of like a journey."

For example, the idea is not so much for the kids to use the mobile phones to call their friends to chat -- although that may be just what they choose to do with them. Either way, given the ubiquity of mobile phones -- or "Handys," as the Germans call them -- thinking of how to tailor such technologies to the needs of childhood makes a certain sense.

"Parents are hesitating to give their kids mobile phones, but actually I think mobile lifestyles are part of life," Mueller-Zantop said. "If you listen to people, a lot of times on mobile phones what people are doing is providing location information. I think it's ridiculous to exclude kids, those who we care the most for."

She believes that the monitoring function could give children more freedom, rather than less. She said she keeps talking to people who will not let their children roam free.

"When we were kids, we disappeared in the forest for a number of hours," she said. "It was wonderful. Do we do that with our kids nowadays? No. I want us to apply technology in a smart way to have kids participate in what we enjoy about mobile life."

There are ethical questions, of course. Does information about pinpoint geographic position represent a kind of civil right, even for children? Does a monitoring device violate that right?

How regular people living regular lives respond to these questions may have everything to do with whether the new devices from Siemens catch on. But what's clear is Mueller-Zantop has spent plenty of time considering the theory of her innovation.

"My personal goal is to raise the discussion on privacy.... The interesting thing on privacy and location technology is you can put it in one single sentence: Your position matters. This has this double meaning. Of course your position or location matters to a lot of people," she said.

"But also my ethical or moral position matters in terms of how much privacy am I giving away when I make my physical position available to other people. And then there is the question of trust. My personal belief is that my location is my personal property. I prefer technology that is handset based and I can shut it off."

So, will the devices for children have a shut-off function? Yes they will. Will children be able to access it? That's up to the parents.

Direct all questions and comments to VoodooMirage@hotmail.com.