Monitoring children's social networking activities and more arepart of a new identity theftmonitoring service being offered to the 428,000 members of the$4.6 billion VyStarCredit Union in Jacksonville, Fla.

The suite of services from Arizona-based IDentity Theft 911include LifeStages Identity Management Systems, which is at no costand helps members when they believe there has been an identitytheft as well as FraudScout and SocialScout that monitor creditreports for possible identity thefts and carry nominal charges

FraudScout focuses on adult credit bureau reports and creditinformation while SocialScout focuses on social networks of minorchildren ages 9-17 and alerts parents when possibly compromisinginformation is captured or shared on these networks as well asother threats.

“Designed for kids age 9-17, SocialScout is a groundbreakingonline Parental Intelligence System that helps you monitor andquickly analyze your child's social networking and mobile phoneactivity–keeping you informed of predators, cyber bullies andreputation-damaging behavior,” VyStar wrote in a brochure about theservice.

“SocialScout provides comprehensive social network, Smartphoneemail and text message monitoring for BlackBerry and Androiddevices. It can even help you translate the text messages theymight send or receive. Applications supported include Facebook,Twitter and MySpace,” the credit union said.

VyStar is the first credit union to deploy SocialScout, IDentityTheft 911 said.

The LifeStages Identity Management service is both aneducational program to keep credit union members aware of whentheir personal information can be most vulnerable and aconcierge-style service that will help members resolve problemsshould there be a case of identity theft.

“When a member calls into us with the belief that their identityhad been compromised, they get our full attention and our staffstays with them through the process until resolution,” saidIdentity Theft 911 co-founder and chairman Adam Levin.

Levin said his staff handles required forms, preparation toletters of explanation to the credit bureaus and other detailswhile members still need to read, sign and post the letters.

“The goal is take a process which is stressful and complicatedand make it simpler and more understandable,” Levin said.