Trendsurfing: Child-tracking (The Times)
By David Rowan
Have you tagged your kids today? It's the latest way to dissipate parental anxieties. Thanks to a new range of high-tech monitoring tools, it is now easier than ever to spy electronically on your children. You can track their movements via the mobile phone system, remotely monitor their presence in school, even learn when your teenager is driving too fast, thanks to a satellite-linked service that will snitch on him or her by e-mail. As intrusiveness goes, it makes 1984 look tame - but if it reassures the grown-ups, the burgeoning child-tracking industry can only get bigger.
Mobile-phone companies have been quick to spot an opportunity. Services such as Phonetrack in Britain will, for a fee, use the GPS satellite system to locate your children to within a few hundred yards. You can trace their movements over the internet, provided they have their phones switched on, and gather evidence with which to challenge them later. They may not appreciate being monitored, but at least you can argue that you are trying to protect them.
An American company, Teen Arrive Alive, goes further, letting parents know not only their child's location (updated every two minutes), but also how fast he or she has been driving. The satellite network picks up signals from their Motorola phones, and mum and dad keep informed via text message or e-mail. As the company's sales pitch boasts, "Whether you're on vacation in Europe or having dinner at a local restaurant, you can check on your child whether they are driving to a ball game, riding in a friend's car, or hanging out at the mall." It won't necessarily make you a better parent, but at least you'll feel less guilty on that indulgent trip to Europe.
More controversial is the growing use of radio-frequency "smart tags" to monitor junior's whereabouts. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags have been used for some years to track farm animals or domestic pets, but now primary schools and amusement parks are attaching them to little people. Schools in Japan and the United States have been fitting the tags to pupils' name-tags and schoolbags, with scanners built into school gates and classroom doors to read their signals from a distance. One Tokyo school sends parents automatic text messages each time their child steps on or off the bus. The service is particularly popular after a rash of recent media reports of child kidnappings.
Much of the current push towards electronic child-tracking is based on claims that it makes children safer. That, at least, is how the new systems are being marketed. But would it really help prevent a kidnapping? Even if a child is shown to have safely left a school bus at the correct stop, he or she has no greater protection after that. As for tracking systems that use mobile phones, what happens after a phone is switched off?
Still, there is money to be made, and we are going to be sold a lot more of these tracking systems in the coming months. But beyond the hype, this trend is more about selling parental convenience than child safety. Visitors to Legoland may well feel reassured by renting "KidSpotter" RFID wristbands to locate their children on electronic maps. But would you really want to rely on a wireless tracking system as a substitute for parental responsibility?
(The Times Magazine, April 2 2005)
Have you tagged your kids today? It's the latest way to dissipate parental anxieties. Thanks to a new range of high-tech monitoring tools, it is now easier than ever to spy electronically on your children. You can track their movements via the mobile phone system, remotely monitor their presence in school, even learn when your teenager is driving too fast, thanks to a satellite-linked service that will snitch on him or her by e-mail. As intrusiveness goes, it makes 1984 look tame - but if it reassures the grown-ups, the burgeoning child-tracking industry can only get bigger.
Mobile-phone companies have been quick to spot an opportunity. Services such as Phonetrack in Britain will, for a fee, use the GPS satellite system to locate your children to within a few hundred yards. You can trace their movements over the internet, provided they have their phones switched on, and gather evidence with which to challenge them later. They may not appreciate being monitored, but at least you can argue that you are trying to protect them.
An American company, Teen Arrive Alive, goes further, letting parents know not only their child's location (updated every two minutes), but also how fast he or she has been driving. The satellite network picks up signals from their Motorola phones, and mum and dad keep informed via text message or e-mail. As the company's sales pitch boasts, "Whether you're on vacation in Europe or having dinner at a local restaurant, you can check on your child whether they are driving to a ball game, riding in a friend's car, or hanging out at the mall." It won't necessarily make you a better parent, but at least you'll feel less guilty on that indulgent trip to Europe.
More controversial is the growing use of radio-frequency "smart tags" to monitor junior's whereabouts. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags have been used for some years to track farm animals or domestic pets, but now primary schools and amusement parks are attaching them to little people. Schools in Japan and the United States have been fitting the tags to pupils' name-tags and schoolbags, with scanners built into school gates and classroom doors to read their signals from a distance. One Tokyo school sends parents automatic text messages each time their child steps on or off the bus. The service is particularly popular after a rash of recent media reports of child kidnappings.
Much of the current push towards electronic child-tracking is based on claims that it makes children safer. That, at least, is how the new systems are being marketed. But would it really help prevent a kidnapping? Even if a child is shown to have safely left a school bus at the correct stop, he or she has no greater protection after that. As for tracking systems that use mobile phones, what happens after a phone is switched off?
Still, there is money to be made, and we are going to be sold a lot more of these tracking systems in the coming months. But beyond the hype, this trend is more about selling parental convenience than child safety. Visitors to Legoland may well feel reassured by renting "KidSpotter" RFID wristbands to locate their children on electronic maps. But would you really want to rely on a wireless tracking system as a substitute for parental responsibility?
(The Times Magazine, April 2 2005)
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