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Children's Watch Allows Parents To Track Their Kid
pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that a new wristwatch called num8 has a GPS tracking device and satellite positioning system concealed inside so parents can locate the wearer to within 10 feet with Google maps. The watch sends an alert if it is forcibly removed. The makers of the watch claim it gives peace of mind to parents and makes children more independent. 'Losing your child, if only for a brief moment, leads to a state of panic and makes parents feel powerless. The overriding aim of num8 is to give children their freedom and parents peace of mind,' says a company spokesman. Critics of the watch say tagging children is a step too far in paranoia about child safety. 'Is the world really that unsafe that parents need to track their children electronically? I don't think so,' says Dr Michele Elliott, director of children's charity Kidscape."
Sometimes I wish for some apocalypse just so the "Please won't someone take care of me!" dolts realize that the only person who can take care of you - IS YOU!.
Personally I wouldn't use this for teenagers because at that age, they have matured enough that they deserve a little privacy, and they will be going to difference places and such as part of their normal social life. However, for pre-teens, they generally will not be going anywhere but the places you expect them to. If they're not at those places, then they're generally in trouble (whether they've wandered off on accident, been abducted, or are just being mischievous). I don't see how this bracelet really compromises much convenience on their part, so personally I wouldn't hesitate to use it on younger children.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
1. Extend functionality to provide automatic electroshock to BRAT moving beyond configured away-from-home radius
2. ?
3. PROFIT!!!
Parents have been perfectly capable of looking after their children without GPS tracking for millennia... IMHO with a little trust and good parenting, these devices are completely unnecessary.
If I were subjected to this, the first thing I would do would be to figure out how to remove it without setting of the alarm and then tie it to, say, a car exhaust. If only for the challenge!
On another note, the world may not be more safe or unsafe as it has in the past. The difference is that it has becomes easier to hear about what *does* happen with the internet and such.
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
I'm of mixed emotions on this one. As a parent (and grandparent), I like it, especially for small children. But as a privacy advocate, I feel appalled at yet another privacy invasion. Not to mention, if you can track your child, so can a pedophile (Think Of The Children!). I think the best use for this might be in a limited way, like in crowded places like parks, in case you get separated from your small child. That has happened to me, and that's scary enough.
Politicians complicate life - logic is sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.
That's funny, I was having a discussion with my mother about how I thought child leashes were stupid and too invasive on the child's freedom.
My mother told me she used to think like that too, until the day she lost one of her children (either me or my brother, don't remember) in a busy place. When that happened she realized that maybe the leashes are stupid, but at least you'll never lose your child in one moment of distraction. Thankfully, she never went though with it :-)
I think a GPS bracelet is a nice compromise between having peace of mind and being too imposing on your child's ability to move and sense of independence. At least when they really are children -- for teenagers it's a different story, IMHO.
when the watch battery is dead
do you replace the watch ?
or do you replace the kid ?
you probably would rather replace parents
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
'Is the world really that unsafe that parents need to track their children electronically? I don't think so,'
So what's to lose? Say you have a 6 year old kid: is it really going to harm them to wear one of these? Sure, chances are very very high that this'll never be needed, but so what? It's kind of like Pascal's wager, isn't it?
The bit that irritates me most about this is the retailer's website "Loc8r", "Where R U" etc. I'd be more worried about the effects of this on their spelling than their general well being.
One step closer to the inevitable, mandatory tag chip for everyone. And future people will not have problems with it. Things like this watch will make children get used to these sort of things.
Hey, we should use devices like this to get children used to the idea of being watched constantly. . .
Then, when they are adults, they won't mind Big Brother watching every little thing they do. It's for their safety, after all!
~AA
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do.
oh, for fsk sake. have you people lost your damn minds?
"lets get our children used to electronic monitoring early"
We have a device like that here allready, we use it for work release from jail.
How about we raise children that we trust out of our sight?
If you need to track your children like criminals, then I feel sorry for you.
sort of.
-- Sig under construction...
Also there is a good chance she would not have been wearing it in bed anyway.
The summary was so interesting that I clicked the link and actually read TFA. Unfortunately, the summary included basically the whole article, save for some useless details about the interface, and a tidbit about 'Safe Zones'.
Meanwhile I see mothers using phones (illegally, here) while driving their kids to school and weaving across the road. That's not a "perceived" danger. They let their kids get fat. Also not a perceived danger. They don't teach them the dangers of alcohol, which will kill far more people prematurely than all the world's pedophiles and kidnappers.
We really do need to get across the idea that something can be technically feasible and yet undesirable, because a significant number of people do not get it. And in thirty years time the world is going to be run by people still metaphorically tied to mommy's apron, infantilised by never being given any freedom or responsibility. It's not a nice thought.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
What a crap article. GPS is a one-way technology. What does this thing actually DO? Is there a GSM transceiver in there too? A SIM card?
"overriding aim of num8 is to give children their freedom"
this does not pass the chuckle test.
or in other words, bwahahahahaa.
There are many personal locator devices available. The factors that make them either useful or useless are 1) The accuracy and ability to get a position fix of their GPS receiver, and 2) The ability of the device to communicate the position information to the central monitoring system used to track the device. The cost of this device, several hundred US dollars, puts it in the range of low-end personal locator devices like the SPOT personal locator, which has a low-sensitivity GPS chipset and which uses Satellites to relay the position information. Low-end personal locators have very short battery life and generally provide hit-and-miss location tracking. I don't know how this kids-device communicates, but it seems to me that it can't have very good GPS-sensitivity, battery-life, or communications-power. I'd love to have one of these on my toddler when we go to the State Fair, or other crowded outdoor events, but I'd like to see an extensive test and review of any device like this before I add it to the tools I use to protect my child.
Moderation in All Things... Especially Moderation - gurutc
The abducter would have used simple methods everyone knows about to block the alert signal from going out while forcibly removing the device.
Probably involving several layers of aluminum foil wrapped around it, and some bolt cutters.
> what exactly would have happened to Madeleine McCann if she was wearing one
> of these when abducted ? Either: (a) it would have been forcibly removed -
> causing an alert, or (b) police would have been able to track her.
Or (c) Tracking Police would have found her chopped-off arm, incl. intact bracelet.
It's not clear from the website how this info is transmitted. I'm curious if anyone actually knows... If it's talking up to the GPS then you could remove the watch anywhere there's no line of sight to a GPS satellite. Likewise, you could do the same anywhere there's no cell signal where the watch is...
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
Before or after her parents killed her and dumped her body?
Oh and unless she slept with her watch on it would have made fuck all difference if she was abducted. Most child abuse comes from within the family, after that the majority comes from trusted family friends and people who are expected to be with the kids, only a small amount comes from strangers, so this will only be marginally more effective at preventing abuse than snake oil and kids would be better off allowed to go out freely (they would be out of reach their family & family friends). It's not that i think this is bad technology, but its very ineffective (and users should be aware of that) and may encourage bad parenting (not letting the kids go out enough).
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Really, how did they fit it all in there?
As a parent of an autistic child with escape artist tendencies, I would love to have this kind of watch. That is, assuming that my kid will wear it for more than 5 minutes in a row without trying to cut it off.
My kid is 10 and incredibly fast. He doesn't understand the concepts of safety and fear, and is constantly figuring out ways to break our locks to go out wandering alone (he's even done it at school, which was actually a bit funny because he took off running in front of the principal, so for the first few minutes there was a gaggle of huffing and puffing teachers and secretaries chasing through an apartment complex until the cops arrived). A watch like this, combined with some kind of alarm could help us keep him alive and unharmed until he is 18.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Hey mom, dad. Uncle Jack isn't so creepy after all. He's given me this lovely watch for my birthday....
Time to start selling tinfoil gloves in kid's sizes!
Every logical bone in my body (head?) is telling me this is ridiculous, paranoid, a step too far, goes against everything I've ever thought, etc. However, as a newish parent (my only daughter is now 3 and a half) there is an emotion creeping in that sees the benefit of this.
I expect logic and principles will win out - for now. I'm sure one reason for the growing number of paranoid parent is the declining birth rate - you really do view your one child as so precious that your principles are easily modified (or discarded altogether, to be truthful), and the technology is becoming available and more affordable, so there are going to be fewer reasons like cost to stand in the way. When trackers are $10 in K-Mart, who is NOT going to have one? I'd like to think I wouldn't on principle but what if nonces start targeting those without? You see how it starts?
The chance of your kid being kidnapped is next to NIL. It has far more chance to be hit by a car, to fall to his death, and other rare incident. Children which disappear (in the US) have two reasons : they get away on their own will, or they are in custodial dispute. Kids getting kidnapped by a stranger are extremely rare (a few hundred per year ? As opposed to many 10's of thousand of children "disappearing" I wish I had saved the FBI statistic web page), and removing forcefully the watch and dropping it somewhere in a hole would not stop them. Actually this would not stop them killing and abusing the child, which as far as I can tell happens relatively quickly from the few incident I remember of. It might help catch the bad guy quicker behind bar that is it. As for abuse, children abuse, as far as I can tell it is not a random stranger you should fear. It is the father, the mother, the uncle / tante, the brother/sister, the cousins and the direct neighbors.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Almost all child abuse is from family members. Wearing a GPS watch won't help to stop the step dad from hurting the kid. Abuse or abduction by strangers is so rare that it is hardly worth mentioning. All this does is extract money from parents and lets them pretend the danger is somewhere that it isn't.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
I'll pay you $20 million if we can settle this out of court!
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
wake up, you ARE powerless. your child is an entity independant of you, you can and will find trouble. learning through experience is far too lacking these days...
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
My severely disabled child is now 8 years old, finally mobile, and very social. I see this type of product as an absolute necessity. I'm glad it is being developed for "typical" children so the price is not astronomical.
Where to begin...
1. Constant track of your child's whereabouts, being sent to a corporate entity. Talk about the ultimate database of marketing data, and you know that'll be up for grabs.
2. ANY security flaws in their system open it up for a myriad of privacy violations. Not to mention, as someone else pointed out, it's an instant "find me a victim" site for a kidnapper/pedophile if they can access the information.
3. If you're like most parents, this is for that rare time the kid ISN'T with you for some reason. The rest of the time, it's really a way to track the parents to within 10 feet on Google Maps. You think that won't be profiled, purchased, and tied to something else?
4. Yeah hey, let's get our future criminals-to-be used to the idea of ankle bracelets. This is no different, you just don't get hunted by cops if you take it off (though the whole idea of it is so you can be hunted by cops easily).
5. Hey Parents - Try being a parent! It's an amazing concept that doesn't require electronic leashes, and actually teaches your kids things that will be useful in life beyond "nobody else trusts you, so you shouldn't trust anyone either".
If my kid one day gives me a reason to drop the e-Leash hammer, then so be it, but I'd like to think I will be a better parent in the meantime that it may not be necessary, rather than one of those dopes that watches their kid getting hauled off to jail wondering where it all went wrong.
Problem: Kids don't wear watches. Don't wear them, don'y have them, don't want them, don't need them.
Solution: All cellphones include GPS functionality built-in. Kids do want cellphones, and a good number already have them. And, many cell carriers even have services that allow parents to locate children on their plans.
/ must not rant about idiot helicopter parents, must not rant about idiot helicopter parents, must not rant about idiot helicopter parents...
... will have run out of money. That "montly subscription" is sure as hell gonna wring every last buck out of yout wallet once they got you hooked.
Musicians don't die. They just decompose.
How exactly does tracking someone everywhere they go "increase their freedom"?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I used to walk to school and walk home by myself when I was like 6 or 7. Now, a child of that age isn't allowed to leave the school building unless a parent or someone else "on the list" appears to pick them up.
I don't know if the number of child abductions and other such things have gone up. I know that attention to those incidents is certainly increased. I just have to wonder if there are really significant differences between now and then or if we are just becoming increasingly paranoid without good reason.
And if there are truly increases in crimes against children, I would have to ask why. What is it about our society that is breeding this sort of thing with higher frequency? Is it Disney's fault for dressing little girls up in slutty outfits to make billions of dollars? Is it parents who put makeup on the faces of 5 year old girls to win beauty contests? Is it the lack of discipline that was in fashion some 20 to 30 years ago a contributing factor? I really don't know and would certainly be interested to know.
But why would GPS tracking devices on children be good? Is parental participation in the lives of the children really so difficult? Does it have to be made "too easy" because the parents can't pull themselves away from their video games? (I know some people like that and it's a sticking point with me) Being a parent is a full-time lifestyle choice. It means changing EVERYTHING about everything in your life. It means giving up a lot of time and other things and finding new joys with them. If people cannot do that, that's fine... just don't have kids. (I know, saying so is worthless... the smarter people already consider these things and then don't have kids... the less smart people keep having kids breeding a population of really stupid people.)
Or perhaps this is driven by something else? We do seem to have a "gotta know it now" sort of mentality these days. We turn to the internet for nearly everything these days including grocery shopping. Marketing this technology "for the children" could just be someone's idea of exploiting the worries of a few parents. Frankly, if I had some of these devices, I'd sooner put one in my luggage when I travel or on my car to track my mileage. But I don't think I would put them on children. If they are young enough to worry about, then they are young enough for me to BE THERE. And if they are teenagers, then I only have to say "nothing good can come of this." Can you imagine how much worse life would be if your teenage years were tracked by GPS?! Many of us complain all day long about "big brother" and here we are becoming big brother.
Teenagers will make monitoring this Big Brother-like network a nightmare when they inevitably all decide to collectively ditch the tracker watches before going out to party on a friday night.
Considering most situations where a parent would use this (park / mall / large crowds), does it really need "satellite" tracking abilities? I would imagine just a standard beacon transmitter and receiver would be enough. Most of the scenarios I can imagine would be where the child was within 1 mile of the parent, if not less.
Also, I'd have to imagine that if someone is depraved enough to "kidnap" a kid, they know to cut off the watch and backpack / etc.
--WooooHoooo--
I've always wondered why reporters/contractors in Iraq & Afghanistan don't get stuff like this (preferably sub-dermal). Is it easy to detect/block/ineffective or simply too much for oil companies/news organizations to spend ~$400 on a statistically significant number of their employees?
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
It might send out a warning if the band is separated from the watch body, but looking at the band, the clasp is just about as flimsy as can be.
Because, in the U.S., maybe 120 children are abducted in any given year (out of 35-80 millionish, depending on how you define children). The risk of drowning in a pool is an order of magnitude greater. And paying $240 per child (rough conversion from 150 pound list price) to stave off an infinitesimal risk is stupid. And the watch can be removed without force (look at the picture). And the odds of the watch being removed for a other reasons (sports, catching on a branch, etc.) are high, meaning most of the time the alert is for nothing, but costs time (and sometimes police resources) to respond to for no reason.
In short, if we "protected" every child in the US, as a nation we'd spend a ten billion+ dollars up front, plus billions more in pointless police responses, and it wouldn't have a significant effect on the safety of any given child. In fact, the more people who use the watch, the less effective it would be, since kidnappers would know to look for and remove it carefully.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
You can't "talk up" to a GPS satellite.
Well, you can, but it would ignore you.
The "satellite positioning system" or "satellite tracking system" is just a GPS receiver and (a guess here) and a cell phone (or some part of one)
He would place this device on his child without the kid knowing about it. If the kid went somewhere unauthorized then Dick would torture the kid until the truth of the activities was revealed. Let's do everything it takes to keep our kids safe.
I have to partly agree. It's possible that if she was waring some kind of tracking device maybe It would have gone unnoticed and the situation wouldn't have been as bad.
It's hard to say how this technology could be used, my wife and I have talked about getting GPS tracking implants for our kids when we eventually have children (for when they're young). Things happen you go to the beach, the mall, the movies, fairs, etc... and it's a haven for kidnappers one second where you're paying a vendor or you turn your head to talk to someone and whosh!! kid's gone.
I could also see this as a bad thing come the teenage years. I caused some trouble when I was younger, but looking back I see it as a necessary evil for my overall development. If I could track my teenagers and I knew where they were, sure I could go collect them because they aren't were they told me they'd be, but what kind of experiences and lessons could I be ruining because I "over sheltered" them? Some parents might take the stance "If I'm responsible for what my kids do, I have a right to invade their privacy.". I'd have to respond "true enough", but 1) just because you know where your kid is doesn't mean they're not causing trouble and 2) if you teach your kids to make good decisions, rather then making the decisions for them, you can be just as confident they're not up to something to get you in trouble.
There has to be some kind of cut off point, but every person it's different, some mature faster then others, and ultimately it has to be up to the parent to decided until the kid is at least of legal age. I have four siblings, I think my youngest younger brother, 18 now, could have been driving when he was 13-14 because he is mature and responsible, he makes all the right decisions (there would be no need to track him). My oldest younger brother, 22 now, STILL shouldn't be allowed to drive as he's demonstrated time and time again with speeding tickets, getting pulled over for drunk driving and drugs, and wrecking his friends truck (I'm surprised he's not in jail let alone the COPS don't have a tracking bracelet on him).
Some kids would be happy to have a watch like this. Some kids like technology. They'd think it was cool. There's no reason to necessarily hide from you kid what the watch does. It's a tool to help you be a better parent, not a tool to help you "spy" on your kids (unless that's what you buy it for).
My daughter's much to young to use something like this, but I suppose when she is older I MIGHT consider it. I'd talk to her about it first though, and only get it if she was on board. It's much too expensive an item for her to toss in the bushes because she doesn't like it.
www.clarke.ca
While some children do wander away, the real fear that this device appears to cater to is stranger abduction. The problem is that stranger abduction is rare. Abuse by family members or close family friends is much more common, and often does not involve the child being abducted or going missing. This technology would seem to be tailor made to enable abusers to track and control the children that they are already controlling and manipulating.
Thanx,
John
When the going gets weird, The weird turn pro.
- Hunter S. Thompson
If your child is young enough to need a leash, well and good. But consider. A child leash is a two-way thing. You know the child is there, the child knows you are there. It is more invasive than a GPS, but also far more secure. And the parent has to pay attention to the child instead of just letting them wander off. My argument is that GPS tracking of children creates a false sense of security (like mothers thinking their kid is "safe" in the car while they drive like idiots"). A child leash doesn't. The high-tech solution is not actually as good as the low-tech one.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
One clarification: The 120 figure is for abducted by strangers. Many more are abducted by family and to a lesser extent, friends of family. But in the far more frequent abduction case, it can be assumed that the abductor is aware of the watch and will therefore remove it non-forcefully.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Plus, since this must have a way to be removed with using force, I think we can guarantee that the kids will very quickly come up with ways to subvert the locks and take these off if they don't want to wear them.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
*Tracking pets or hunting dogs.
*Tracking parolees and probationers.
*Tracking the mentally infirm.
*Tracking very young school children on a field trip, as an add-on, not replacement for, adult supervision.
*Tracking people who camp in the wilderness.
*Tracking young children who are in unfamiliar areas.
Of course, for anyone who can use a cell phone, the broadcasting should be turned off or maybe broadcast only once an hour unless the person shows signs of distress such as loss of blood pressure, not moving for a certain period of time without being in "I'm taking a nap" mode, etc.; the device is removed for more than a preset period of time; or the user hits a call-for-help button.
Oh, and it should be cheaper than the cost of meal at a good restaurant.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'd rather put this watch on an Alzheimer's patient, who is likely to wander off to dog knows where and no-one can find him.
Especially so if the patient is in Verizon country.
One of these days, I am going to flip out. When I flip out, I'll be back in five minutes.
Do you know how many children are kidnapped in the US?
About 240.
Buying one of these stupid things isn't going to make your kid any safer, but it will teach him that you're an overprotective control freak.
At the very least there would be some forensic evidence left over. The watch would have been tracked, the arm found and the hounds unleashed. There would be a blood trail easily tracked by a tracking dog to either the girl or the site in which she was loaded into a vehicle. The condo would have been examined for blood indicative of the act. Their vehicles would have been checked in the same manner. The girl would not have been found alive in the case of her arm being removed, but something would have been found. Dismemberment is just too messy.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
"Children's Watch Allows Perverts To Track Your Kids"
I'm sure the watch's makers will swear up and down it's impossible for anyone but the parent to track the kid. But, ultimately, there is at least the possibility any technology could be subverted. In this case, I'd be worried that some pervert would be able to find a way to track some kids, watch for patterns in their movements, and figure out the best time/place to snatch kids.
> The girl would not have been found alive in the case of her arm being
> removed, but something would have been found. Dismemberment is just too
> messy.
What a relief...whew!!
1 how safe is the tracking website aka could it be hacked into a "shopping site"
2 realtime tracking has way to many concerns
3 how do they ensure the bracelet is actually on the kid?? (does the strap lock?? is there a pulse detector??)
If there is a legit reason to have this kind of tracking why do an easily visible watch?? why not hide the tracker on the kid somewhere (or maybe have multiple trackers)?
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Depends. I see the GPS not as an active child control device, but as a backup in case you get distracted and the child wanders off.
If you're a bad parent, no amount of technology will save your child.
(by the way, I'm not a big fan of the "minors do not have rights or freedoms" ideology. And also this is definitely a slippery slope.)
Sorry, but 6-yr olds do NOT have freedoms or rights. They are not mature enough to handle them. Now if you put one of these on your 17-yr old, you have issues, but I don't think that this is what this thing was intended for.
Thank goodness that constant surveillance would have no detrimental effect on a child.
When I was 6, I don't think I would have cared.
Isn't there some saying about trading one thing for another, and not deserving either?
Sorry, genius, but granting freedom to a 3-yr old is not going to increase their security. Actually, it's quite the opposite. I would say that those who are stupid enough to allow any unmonitored freedom outside the back yard to a child under 5 is a moron. That said, even with this monitoring device, I still would not let a child have unfettered access to the outside world. I'm a parent and I have a hard time taking a shower or a dump when I'm watching my daughter by myself. I won't let her out of my sight without setting the alarm system.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
"If you spend all your time childproofing the world you won't have any time to worldproof your child."
I saw that in a sig awhile ago. Don't remember from who. It's a great one though.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
'Is the world really that unsafe that parents need to track their children electronically? I don't think so,'
That really depends on your definition of the world and where you live in it. I'm sure there are a few families in some not-so-well-off countries that would love to have this device on their children, and at that point I wouldn't call it paranoia, more of an everyday security concern I would think.
this rather succinctly http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/02/09/
Good people go to bed earlier.
Children NEED privacy, If they can't get it one way they will get it another. If you think you are being a good parent by watching your kid every moment and not giving them privacy round the house you are an idiot, and if you think you need GPS tracking you are paranoid and it will do you no good.
Trusting your kids, and having them trust and respect you is where you want to be and no high tech bling will get you that.
I recently started reading this great blog by a woman who's very anti-"think of the children". Great stuff and I'm sure she'd get especially upset about something like this.
http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Who wants to bet the the primary use of this device will be for stalking. All someone has to do is stash it in or under someone's car and they can be stalked from home via Google.
Commercially available small form GPS tracking systems available to the common person. Oh yea. I mean, there is NO way that this tech could be used by stalkers to follow someone, or my organized crime to track things. Jeeze, sometimes people will accept any idiot idea if could in some random remote possibility help children. Here's a good reason why this should burn in hell. Small child in a warzone slips it onto a military convoy as it passes through the town doing whatever good press PR work that unit is on for the day. Totally freaking awesome.
Bad example. Most theologians would agree that Pascal was quite wrong about that. By Pascal's argument, as well as being a Catholic you should also be a Muslim and a Protestant, and possibly a member of several interesting other religions to be on the safe side. In the same way, the moment we get into that argument on child safety, you should escalate your security means to the limit of your income. Because the chances are very high that your kid won't die of E coli poisoning, be eaten by a grue, break his neck falling off a bicycle, drown in the bath but he might. If you are prepared to pay several hundred dollars to combat one (actually very unlikely) threat, how much are you prepared to pay for all the others?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The makers of the watch claim it gives peace of mind to parents
Yeah, because that's the most important thing in bringing up children, right?
It's called trust, parents. One evil detail about trust is that knowing is the opposite of trust. By replacing trust with knowledge, you're removing it. So if you don't trust your kids, you have to check on their every move. If you don't trust the people, you have to have surveilance everywhere. It really is the same mindset that's driving both of these developments of society.
And yes, this includes the kidnapping scenario. What, exactly, do you gain by a real-time alert that your kid has been kidnapped? It's not like it would prevent it.
Now the numbers. Yes, you read stuff like this:
Every 40 seconds in the United States, a child is reported missing or abducted.
(source)
Note the words "is reported missing". If you dig into the numbers a little deeper, you find that:
152,265 [of 876,213] of the persons reported missing in 2000 were categorized as either endangered or involuntary.
(source)
That's 17% of the reported cases where something serious is actually going on. But that's just the surface. Actual crime statistics show a better picture:
In 1999, only 115 children were abducted by strangers with the intent to keep, kill or hold them for ransom.
(source)
Now that's a very different figure (almost the same year, though). It does exclude sexual abuse, which accounts for a fair share and is certainly almost as frightening to a parent than a murder. However:
"Family kidnapping" accounts for nearly 50% of all child kidnappings.
(same source)
Now we're getting somewhere. Look, in the "reported missing" as well as in the "involuntary" cases above, one very common case is fully included, as if it were equal to a kidnap-rape-and-kill case: That of one parent in a divorce taking the child without the other parent's knowledge or consent. Yepp, legally that's a kidnapping.
So if you throw enough stuff together under the same label, you can get big enough numbers to frighten parents senseless with. Which you can then use to sell them stuff, pass new laws or whatever it is that was your original intend.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
No. Child leashes were a step too far. This is about 100 miles down the road of paranoia and accelerating fast.
You know what else you can do with this? Instead of a wristwatch, how about an anklet? Oh yeah, they already have them. Used for people under house arrest....
"And paying $240 per child (rough conversion from 150 pound list price) to stave off an infinitesimal risk is stupid"
Is it? How about $120? Or $60? or 60c? My point is this is market forces: if parents feel the need to buy this, they will. Some people have higher disposable income than others, some people place more of a premium on peace of mind, some don't mind blowing a couple of hundred dollars on sneakers. I don't care either way, but it's kind of nice there's an option for people that want this kind of technology.
Dismemberment is just too messy.
You forgot to add the bit at the end, "I am available for children's parties, by the way!"
"All the real evidence points to abduction."
By a dingo, I suppose?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I want one for my dog. Darn thing got loose and was missing for a week. I was wishing for one of these gadgets the whole time.
Yes, because children are so terribly difficult to find. No pedophile would ever be able to find a playground or a school without GPS technology. That makes perfect sense.
I was just going to post this but A/C got there first. Don't know why the obnoxious McCann parents didn't get done for negligence.
Jeez... I was going to mod this one, but as a parent, I've just got to weigh in. Those of you acting like it's some police state conspiracy to track my four-year old, really have no idea what you're talking about. It doesn't change my attitude about keeping an eye on him, it's not invasive or dehumanizing, and the kid doesn't care --the kid probably doesn't even understand. He'd think it was cool to have his own watch.
I lost track of the little guy at a theme park about a year ago when he ran off while I was --ahem-- indisposed in the restroom. We found him 10 minutes later, but it took weeks to get back in my wife's good graces. He's typically obedient, but these things happen --and no, training him in karate, giving him a copy of the Fountainhead, or some other moronic suggestion wouldn't have helped. As he becomes more capable of self-governance and demonstrates responsibility, we will give him increasing autonomy.
Ask me about my sig!
Not this crap again. Please tell me why a predator/kidnapper would want to know where your child is? A kidnapper would only have to know the location of your kid once, and from that point on he knows your child is in his basement, no tracker needed! The predator is probably your friend/family and he/she can just ask you where your kid is and you'll tell them because you trust them. In fact you'll probably ask them to look after your kid :p
This ridiculous fear of a stranger wearing a long dark coat kidnapping and raping your child is... ridiculous.
Kids are supposed to get dirty, get cuts and scrapes and bruises, find themselves in difficult situations, get filthy and yes, even get lost. They're even supposed to lose at games, and join competitions where everyone doesn't get a trophy. Learning how to handle small pains and failures results in a happy, healthy adult who is much better equipped to handle the bigger pains and failures that come from Real Life.
Parents are hard-wired to protect their kids from any harm, no matter how minor. Parents who don't learn to fight that urge raise helpless self-centered adults. Obviously, we need to protect our kids from real dangers and big hurts when we can, and it can be difficult to find the correct middle point. This isn't a correct middle point - this is for paranoid helicopter parents. It is a fine tool for those who want to raise dependent wussies or seriously deranged trouble makers.
Kids who are given the freedom to get hurt and get in trouble usually don't in any big way. Those who are watched every minute have much more incentive to get into much more trouble when they finally figure out how to get away from their overbearing parents.
Although my kids are grown now (and since they were allowed to get hurt and get in trouble they very seldom did) I really like the attitude of this site: http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/
"a new wristwatch called num8 has a GPS tracking device .. concealed inside so parents .. The overriding aim of num8 is to give children their freedom and parents peace of mind"
What's the point. How is the possession of a GPS wristwatch going to protect their kids from muggers, abductors etc. How about they spend some 'quality time' with their own kids, instead of allowing an electronic device to substitute for a baby sitter.
alternative headline: company exploits parental concern to sell product
She would have been very uncomfortable going to bed that night (just like every other night she was forced to wear a large, uncomfortable watch to bed), been unable to sleep, and her parents would have been unable to irresponsibly leave her alone without any supervision.
Most likely this would have resulted in her not being kidnapped - but the diseases she got from organisms trapped between her skin and a sweaty watch non-stop for years at a time killed her anyway.
1) Walk into a "legal" indoors area. 2) Wrap tinfoil around watch. 3) Parents: ???
Well, hopefully if they ever become popular, someone creates a correlation between the increased arm chopped-off rate of children and wearing the bracelet. The kids who you most want to watch are most likely to take it off again and again. The only way to get around it is to implant it.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Here's my take on this. I had an unusual upbringing. My parents were one of those laissez faire types who essentially let me do whatever I wanted as a kid. I could come and go as I pleased, go to bed whenever I wanted, go wherever I wanted, etc.
And gosh, did I ever go places I shouldn't have, and get into trouble, and found myself in danger all the time, including a run in with a pedophile.
But I learned to think my way out of trouble, to be self-sufficient, to problem-solve and, more importantly, not to rely on anyone but myself.
When I see kids these days I'm not sure they're exposed to enough danger to make them think rather than freak out or panic when it happens. And I see this watch as having the potential to give them a false sense of security. I think it actually helps to know people don't know where you are and can't find you if you're in danger, that you'll be a little more cautious knowing this. Don't depend on momma to get you out of trouble.
Sure that's possible. But it's ignorant to consider it likely.
Criminals (and also basically every other person) are opportunists. When someone wants to break into a house and they see an alarm sticker, they just go on to the next house. They don't spend a month studying the alarm and the floor plan and figure a way to defeat the alarm.
In a child abduction where the child has a tracking device, the abductor will get caught 10000 times for every time he decides to chop off the kid's arm. That should be obvious.
Countermeasures don't have to be perfect to be effective. Often, they don't even have to be real. A good way to end vandalism is to install fake surveillance cameras, for example.
This is a terrible idea. Someone wearing this will feel that they are owned, that they are property, that they are watched and not trusted. Parents who would use this have a problem, either in that they watch the news too much and believe the world is a very dangerous place, or that they have an adversarial and overly controlling relationship with their kid, at which point you give up all pretense of having a good relationship and enter into a nasty tug-of-war that will last until the kid is 18 and flees the parents forever.
My parents would have used this on me. My mom believed the world was a dangerous place, with evil lurking around every corner. Both my parents had trust issues even though I was an ideal student, never got in trouble, and was always trustworthy and dependable. And if they had shackled me with something like this, my eventual rebellion would have been a thousand times worse.
Probably just a coincidence... This morning HR announced all new hires will be receiving a watch during orientation session instead of the traditional t-shirt.
It's that most poeple restrict the world available to the child because parts of it are unsafe. Something like this (and future steps which will involve more than just location, like vitals) allow children -- really any person -- to go to places and to do things whose ordinary risks usually involve extraodinary consequences, but now would have much more reasonable consequences.
For example, I bought a new car, an MX-5, and going out for random drives is awesome. I like finding dark creepy roads at night, and exploring. I live in a very safe, huge, city of more than 7 million people. I'm not worried about being attacked in my car at night -- it's just not likely. But if I were to blow a tire, I have a real problem. The answer to "where are you ,we'll send a tow truck" would be "I have on idea. I can see stars, and I'm something like 10 minutes from a residential neighbourhood". Obviously if I should have some kind of medical issue, the same response would be available to the 9-1-1 operator.
Now, I'm an adult, and can say that the risk of my getting stuck somewhere is worth taking. I can say that if I have to sit there for ten hours, that's not so bad. I can say that I'll drive carefully to minimize any serious medical injury. And I can take the gamble and presume that I won't have a sudden stroke for no reason.
But I'd never allow children under my care to take those risks. Purely because if something goes wrong, it goes really wrong. But if I (the guardian) could know where they are, and their heart-rate, that alone would be a awy for me to save them from just about any calamity. The new rule colud be "anywhere within a 60 minute driving radius".
That's pretty freeing. Not only for the child, who would otherwise be caged to a much smaller part of the city, but also to me, who would otherwise be caged near the child.
Of course, for my device to alert me when my child's heart-rate is dangerously low/high, the movie theatres would have to stop jamming wireless signals.
No, it dosnt need grounding, I hope your kid listens at school more than the paranoid parents did.
"Is the world really that unsafe that parents need to track their children electronically?" Elliot asks. If something that is a genuinely justifiable concern is sufficient to qualify as need, then I would be inclined to answer yes. Even if the answer is no, the concern is no less justified and I don't exactly see an abundance of workable alternatives that would accomplish the same desired result, which is simply peace of mind for the parents.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
To date, no company has been about to develop a good watch with GPS tracking capabilities. A company called Wherefy tried it and failed. There are too many challenges with battery life and size.
It would be nice to think karate gave people magical powers that made them tougher but it doesn't, they will probably get beat up more often because they think they are billy badass and can fight there way out of any situtation. Learning dance steps (katas) and breaking boards will not make children less susceptible to Chester the child molester who outweighs the child by 150lbs. Teaching your child not to trust creepy looking guys with mustaches and vans would be more effective, also keeping an eye on children would do wonders.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
What does "forcibly removed" mean? That it was torn off? More likely they would simply remove it normally.
Has nobody else realized the possibilities this device enables? I've always wanted to find out where my ex-girlfriend goes after school!
This would complement with iPhone very well, seeing as I phone now allows you to browse directly Google maps...so if you were to get another app..this would be as easy as look on your phone to see where you are, and where the child is...and be able to track i real time.
It's very interesting that this article appears in Slashdot today.
Just last night, I had a wierd dream where I was lost in a strange city late at night.
I was on a business trip; I was at this strange building that was like a mize with staircases with no railing and endless dark hallways.
I emerged from the building into a part of the city that was very different then when I entered te building.
As I looked around me, the streets kept changing.
One of these devices would have helped me very much during this dream?
Where can I get one?
Cleara
The original article fails to mention anything about battery life. If it's running on a watch battery, they will be lucky to get 2 hours, and that's without transmitting signals. GPS needs to have messages called, "Keep alive" messages. Keep alive messages don't report position, they just keep the connection open to ensure the device will work when you do track it. Keep alive messages are generally set for 30-90 seconds apart, and they do draw on your battery.
GPS doesn't work inside buildings. Guess where your child is going to be most of the time?
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
I have a hard time taking a shower or a dump when I'm watching my daughter by myself.
And if you do watch your daughter while taking a shower or a dump, you'll probably go to jail when she tells her teacher about it.
c++;
1) MOST the problem people for children are FRIENDS AND FAMILY! This fact can not be stated enough. Obviously, tracking does little good.
2) The majority strangers are good people and will help / watch out for kids; well, not in lawsuit crazy countries or ones were the culture of fear makes everybody a threat; even the child who needs your help or supervision. Parents today seem over protective, possibly because they are so much more negligent than previous generations? (its not their fault they are this way)
3) Teenagers will not wear such a watch, outsmart it etc. Teens get themselves into trouble; much of it not requiring tracking-- knowing where they are being foolish is not that useful. Its primary use here would be kidnapping into the sex trade which is much higher in some areas and at certain ages and genders. This is still quite a low percentage even in relative bad areas.
4) Young "adults" would be better suited to a cell phone. Lots of ideas possible here. Ideally, something that was set it off with you yelling help... Your phone tracks you ALREADY to a general area if not precisely by this point-- no gps required. Eventually most children will have a cell phone too.
5) Drug sex offenders to kill their sex drive. Similar to drugging the mental cases as we do now (both are mental problems.) This would possibly even help with the #1 cause of the problems. Makes more sense to have the sick people pay to treat themselves than everybody else pay to see where their kid was before / during victimization.
6) How about we put the tracking devices ON THE OFFENDERS instead of all the kids? (which wouldn't help with biggest group-- friends and family.) This is a lot like house arrest bracelets.
Seriously, somebody who preys on unknown kids/teens has a mental problem not a criminal problem-- punishment doesn't work; they only learn how not to get caught next time or go after safer targets (friends/family) or kill the victims. It requires life-long treatment, not temporary punishment. Its just as foolish as punishing gay people for being gay and thinking it will fix the situation. Legalized prostitution would also cut down the numbers- hey its a fact - prohibitions never work.
7) Bad Behavior / Drugs: Knowing where the child is will not help a whole lot; most the drug users I've known did it around friends, at home, or even at school.
8) Parents: Do you want to have data that could be used to prosecute your child?? In the USA, we prosecute children for stupid shit and are quite foolish about punishing them (in some areas even corrupt about it... http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/519/150)
9) Clever hacker types (who could be kids) will combine with the power of the internet to provide less talented people easy ways to hack the watches so they don't work as planned
10) What about bad coverage areas? GPS doesn't work in all places and sending the data back is even more troublesome. Should a parent call 911 because the child disappears near some kids basement? Would wrapping foil over it cause it to do the same thing?
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Unfortunately, this product is about 12 years too late for me to take advantage of it. We looked high and low for such a product back in 1997 after my son continually wandered away from home. At that time, there were just a few products becoming available for Alzheimer's patients, but nothing in the children's market. We even contacted a few research organizations that were producing collars for tracking wildlife. Their products would have worked but they couldn't market them for use with humans.
If you have an autistic son or daughter who wanders, you will RUN to get this for the peace of mind it can provide. My son was able to outwit, evade, and overcome all the household locking devices we could generate (aside from a keyed deadbolt that would have been problematic in case of a fire.)
Seriously, this device will give some parents peace of mind.
NOTE: My son was always found, without harm, but only after a great deal of effort at times, including the bulk of the police force in Fort Collins at one point in time. Today he's a fairly well-adjusted sophomore in high school.
You really think once these become widely available it won't be the first thing a kidnapper does to remove the watch (correctly, not to trigger an alarm), then toss it into the back of a pickup truck going the opposite way?
Tech won't save you from the world. Measures and countermeasures it's an arms race that provides faux safety and warm fuzzies and lots of money to corporations that lie to you. Educating our kids to think for themselves, be street smart, problem solving, and tenacious is better, IMO.
Century City was a lawyer drama set in the future which tried to look at future legal situations (think cloning, meddling with embryos to produce the "perfect" child, etc). Only eight episodes were produced in 2004 and four were never aired (including the one I'm thinking of; though they are (were) obtainable via p2p). One episode (Without a Tracer dealt with a possible result of this sort of device.
Basically, every child has a tracer (linked to video/audio surveillance no less). The episode revolves around a teenage girl who was fed up with being watched by her parents and removed her tracer, at which point the parents panicked because she'd apparently vanished. IIRC she hired a lawyer to get a ruling to "allow" her NOT to wear the tracer.
Their point was that this sort of device, whilst well-meaning, can become intrusive. I think (and the drama hints) that the tendency will be to rely on devices, further abdicating parental responsibility. Furthermore, I wonder if anyone's considered whether this would make the wearer EASIER to target, should the ID for their device become available, e.g. to someone wishing to kidnap a child for extortion.
This is a little more blatant (and scary), but fundamentally similar. The problem (or, I should say, one of the many problems) with this sort of technology is that it can quickly go from "protect the kids" to "stalk the spouse" (as my link should make clear). Or worse: I suspect this could become quite popular among the pimp population, just to name an obvious example. (Of course, the pimps might need a non-panty version--like this new watch.) In fact, at the risk of Godwinning the discussion, I'll point out that this is ever so much more effective than yellow Star-of-David armbands!
But obviously all that's ok as long as we remember that we have to "think of the children"! Any amount of potential evil can be justified as long as you shout that mantra over and over.
(On the other hand, I suspect that trying to put a technology like this back in the bottle is probably futile, but it might not be a bad idea to start thinking about how we're going to deal with some of the more unpleasant consequences, rather than pretending that it's all hunky-dory because the label says "think of the children".)
Side note: Now that everyone knows what these devices look like, I'm thinking I'll start a business selling fake ones. They LOOK like the GPS tracking thingamajiggies, but in reality they are simple watches with some extra empty space.
Then, in the one in a million chance that a stranger pedophile decides to grab a kid off the playground, the pedophile will see the watch on your kid's wrist and pick another target.
After all, the last thing a pedo wants to do is deal with another layer of security. Even if he manages to block it or take it off, there'll still be a record of the most likely place the abduction took place, and a faster response time until someone notices that the kid is missing and initiates Amber Alert. If you know your kid is at the playground and you get an alarm that the device stopped reporting, chances are you'll be at the playground in a few minutes, have determined your child is missing, and have Amber Alert active within another 1/2 hour. Compare that to only noticing the kid was missing when he/she fails to show up for a meal on time.
Pedo sees one of these gizmos, or (important bit) something that LOOKS like one, he's almost surely going to pick an easier target without Kid-LoJack installed.
Heck, the market on fake security cameras is good... This is pretty much the same thing.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
It will either make the children somewhat paranoid, which is not so bad, or unconcerned about privacy, which is very bad.
If we continue as judgemental as we are, we may end up having a generation in which people will be monitored and face punishment for every petty misdeed, they might even be punished for unconformism and for "predictions" based on social and mental profiles (OMG! Terrorists!!!).Won't somebody actually think of the children?
...I guess I should put my tinfoil hat now.
The good, the evil and the vacuum tubes.
A company comes out with a $150 (and destined to become cheaper) mass-market GPS tracking device that connects to Google Maps, and all you care about is debating parenting styles? Who is going to hack this thing for proper nerd purposes?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
"Remove while spanking the monkey, your parents WILL find out"
TOP DSLR Cameras Reviews of the top DSLRs
To remove these without detection:
1. Place child's entire forearm into a bucket of water.
2. Forcibly remove watch underwater. Leave in bucket.
3. Sell kid to family with better tracking capability.
Simple enough?
Develop internal control and be a good person for life.
Have external control forced upon you, and you will never grow to be a good person.
"Yes, it's statistically insignificant, but society is kept at a high fear level right now and you *are not* going to win a rational argument to eliminate an irrational fear."
I feel genuinely sorry for you, a country that recognizes hopeless irrational fear, and does not know what to do about it.
(1) Get a real education, and one that includes basic statistics and logic,
(2) Set an anti-corruption investigation of the ENTIRE legislature, put the crooks and thieves in jail,
(3) Shut down the Cable News channels, and radio-talk shows by limiting them to 4 X 1 hour broadcasts per day 9am, 3pm, 9pm & 3am so they dont have to try to invent so much garbage.
Stop pandering to lobbiests, minorities and idiots who just want air time.
... constant tracking. After all, the next logical step is to pass a simple, yet harmless law that requires everyone wear one of these for life. After all, it would be for our own good somehow.
I hate to state the obvious, but there is no such thing as a secure device. If you can track little Johnny with GPS, then I can hack into the system and track Johnny as well.
No longer will I have to suspiciously sit near the playground in a dirty van scoping out Johnny's cute little derriere with my binoculars waiting for the perfect opportunity to nab him. I'll be miles away on someone's open wireless network tracking his every movement. I'll know every aspect of his daily patterns; the route he walks to school, what houses he frequents and at what times, all without ever risking capture until the very moment I grab him.
And if I'm a violent criminal, I might just take him by force right from your house. The house whose layout I know perfectly from all the pictures you've posted on your Facebook/MySpace page. The house I know doesn't have any guns in it, because you blabbed on and on about how anti-gun you are there as well. I also know YOU from your pictures, and you obviously couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag.
Oh, and BTW? I downloaded the schematics for that watch off of usenet. It really isn't too hard to defeat. I'll get a chuckle when the police find it on the stray cat I released as a diversion.
Then won't you feel like a complete idiot when the very thing you used to protect him is what costs him his life...
Is this an unrealistic scenario? Perhaps. But no less realistic than the idea that something similar will happen if you don't GPS your child.
Do you also put crash helmets and flame retardant suits on your kids whenever you take them somewhere by car? Methinks not, but that would do far more to enhance their real-world safety than being a helicopter parent.
Massively over-protective. You're the sort of parent who's 18 year old kid goes off to her first year of college, and drinks herself to death because 1) you've been working on a baaaaacklaaaaaash for 18 years and 2) she has no self-reliance because you've had one hand on her shoulder her entire life.
There's no sport in it if you can track them with GPS.
is there a service provider in the middle of Outback, Nowhere in Australia, or in Canada, or even some areas of the United States?
I am curious as to why it is "the outback, Australia" and "areas of the US" but apparently all of Canada? We have a large variety of service providers up here: elk, bison, deer and moose. On advantage of our providers is that they can actually drag the child back with them - I'd like to see any of your fancy US providers do that. We even have a new cutting edge, high speed Canada goose network that has just enough capacity to carry iPhone traffic. So please remember that just because we all live in igloos doesn't mean that don't have access the latest tech.
Demonstrating the history of child control devices to put things like this watch into a more accurate, historic perspective. The leash comes to mind, but I'd be willing to bet there's been a wealth of such devices for as long as there have been worried parents.
Quack, quack.
You were raised well without these fancy GPS tracking devices and it worked out just fine therefore children now should all wear them? I'm sorry, I don't follow your post.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
There's actually several of these kind of devices on the market, I've seen different watches, cell phones and even a backpack. They have their place, I have 3 kids all under the age of 10 and kids that age can get lost very easily if you don't keep a close eye on them. I've put serious consideration into buying some kind of GPS tracker for my kids.
It's important to realise, however that a kid is going to get abducted even if they are wearing some wizzbang locater device if they're not first taught how to defend themselves. There's no substitute for teaching your kids the most important lesson of all: Stay away from strangers! I've taught my kids some very important things, that all parents should teach them:
- Don't approach strangers
- If one approaches you, run
- If the worst happens and someone grabs you, make a huge fuss - kick and scream, do what ever you can to draw attention.
Right now, I'm investing my $250 not into a GPS device but into taking my kids to self defense classes. Much apart from the fact it's great exercise and teaches them discipline and respect, it may save their lives one day. Plus, they're having a lot of fun doing it :)