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Swedish Daycare Tracks Kids With GPS Devices
An anonymous reader writes "A daycare center in Sweden is testing a new system for that will prevent missing children by placing GPS tracking devices on kids while they are outside of the confines of the nursery walls. The transmitters will report to a synced mobile phone, alarming teachers if a child moves out of a certain distance. The tracking devices clip easily to reflective vests that the children of the Malmoe daycare wear when outside of the school."
Is a real problem for Swedish daycares? How many Swedish children go missing from daycare every year? Wouldn't it be more cost effective to, you know, hire attentive teachers to watch the kids in the first place so they don't escape?
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
... I had a dog tag. So if found, returning to parents would be easy. It did get returned, found in a bush.
Personally I'm not against using technology for this. It does bring risks, and those must be dealt with properly. For example, like you can already "wardrive" around for wireless CCTV cams broadcasting their picture around, one could perhaps hijack these devices. The usual assumption is that this security thing has been taken care of properly, it's on the market, innit? But that usually isn't true at all, and very few people bother to look into it. After that you get into the usual hyped "IT security" culture of fear that isn't helping much.
We're also descending into a culture of overzealous security, like how every kid now wears eyesearing yellow or awful orange jackets "when outside". Wouldn't be surprised if we'll find that 20 years down the road they've developed deficiencies like not being able to timely spot moving objects on the road unless clad in hi-glow colours like that. Yes, I'm speculating, but that's not the point. The point is that you can definitely overdo this "security" thing, and heck it might cause the adults on overwatch to grow lazy and not spot it should kids ditch the jacket and bugger off.
And, of course, they'll have to grow up sometime. This "security fears" thinking might impair and impede grownups letting go and allowing the kids to become responsible adults themselves. That's the real, long-term danger of the "think of the childrun" mantra, and it's a risk here, too. Have they thought about that? Thought not.
I don't personally see any issue with it, provided that they're still being looked after and the devices are removed when they go home. It's not just children walking off, it's the one offs that nobody sees coming.
The main concern I would have would be complacency that can come from having a back up.
Personally, I'd be fine with this if I had kids in daycare.
Now you can finally know who is the fastest around the playground tricycle track!
It's not just one preschool, but over a hundred, and it's been going on for at least a couple of years. This is just one school that's testing it. The Data Inspection Board (Datainspektionen) is investigating whether it complies with Swedish privacy laws.
The general reaction to this among the Swedish public (as I gather from papers and other forums) is that the real problem is that there are too few teachers per child in daycare, and many don't like it, although some do see it somewhat safer than just relying on teachers counting the kids.
"Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
Do the devices unclip easily?
If I am in charge of, and responsible for, another persons child - you can bet your fucking arse I am going to use every means possible to ensure that my own arse is not on the line for losing that child.
Children wander off - take your eye off them for a second and they are gone, they are worse than cats in that regard. And if they wander off, they can become vulnerable. Every child care place I know of have bars or very high walls around the play grounds, tightly securable windows, and double security doors on the entrances - not to mention all of the CCTV in place. Why do they have this? Because losing a child in your care is a serious issue, with potentially criminal consequences.
GPSing the kids? What are the actual downsides? Really, what are they? Tracking where the kid goes is an invasion of their privacy? Well you should be doing that anyway, GPS just helps you do that.
When you're building any sort of security system the very first thing you need to do is decide what your threat model is. Then when you think about a solution you need to assess it against that model to see how it performs. If the threat here is kidnapping, the solution is useless since the bad guys will remove the tag. This solution is only ever going to help against "wandering" kids, but if the teachers think that the kids can't wander off then they are likely to pay less attention, which is means the kids will be at greater risk of injury from all sort of other things that the teachers would have spotted. The system almost certainly puts kids at greater risk than before.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
Saw this on the news a day or two ago.
It's worth noting that this daycare is a kind of all-weather-daycare, ie. outside activities the entire day, every day. Keeping track of kids in the forrest is not the same as regular daycare. The GPS beeps and warns when a kid goes outside the geo fence, and apparently the teachers felt that it was a second layer of security besides constantly counting kids, wich is what they are doing atm.
It's not the threat model, it's the business model that drives it. Parents are nervous people: the most precious thing in the world is their child. People generally overrate the threat of serious crime/ abduction. So if you can announce that your kindergarten not only has lots of lovely high trained staff *but also* shiny technology to protect the precious children, then you might get more parents sending their children to your kindergarten rather than the one down the road.
For the kindergarten it is a cost-benefit analysis and they've decided spending some money on tech will bring in more kids which will make more money.
Kids in daycare were already supposed to be monitored constantly. Adding the GPS just prevents human error.
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If I am in charge of, and responsible for, another persons child - you can bet your fucking arse I am going to use every means possible to ensure that my own arse is not on the line for losing that child.
Children wander off - take your eye off them for a second and they are gone, they are worse than cats in that regard. And if they wander off, they can become vulnerable. Every child care place I know of have bars or very high walls around the play grounds, tightly securable windows, and double security doors on the entrances - not to mention all of the CCTV in place. Why do they have this? Because losing a child in your care is a serious issue, with potentially criminal consequences.
GPSing the kids? What are the actual downsides? Really, what are they? Tracking where the kid goes is an invasion of their privacy? Well you should be doing that anyway, GPS just helps you do that.
I do not want to live where you live... Admittedly it's been more than two decades since I was in daycare, but all we had were low gates that were difficult for small children to open, and I haven't seen any daycare centers that look like prisons yet in Sweden thankfully...
From Aliens... "Man their all around us but I don't see them! We're surrounded!!" Marines then think to look up. Children with acid for drool start dropping from the ceiling and chasing the daycare marines.
Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
I work for Whistler Blackcomb ski resort in Whistler, British Columbia. We've been using a GPS system to track kids in Ski School since 2009. I don't work in Ski School myself, but this is a massive resort and its incredibly easy for experienced riders to get seperated from there group. So as an instructor I imagine that despite your best efforts to keep your group together, if a student (kids as young as 5) got seperated from the group being able to call into dispatch and get a location would be a pretty huge advantage.
http://www.flaik.com/
Children who just walk away without explicitly planning to (which I'm sure will be the absolutely most common case) most likely will not remove the GPS. Of course, given that the GPS is mounted on a reflective jacket, it would mean that if a child removes the reflective jacket for whatever reason (e.g. because of feeling hot after running around), the GPS will be removed as well.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
What are the actual downsides? Really, what are they?
Nothing conjures up cost-is-no-object solutions like a high-impact threat to a three year old. The unspoken "cost," of course, is that our children are growing up in a climate of fear: They spend more time sitting indoors or being hovered over by helicopter parents ... but they are "safe" ... and putting on weight ... and failing to develop healthy social, physical, and problem-solving skills.
Safety isn't as safe as we think it is.
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
And while on the order of 0.2 kids/year end up dead as a result of wandering off from childcare, 20% of all deaths are caused by insufficient physical activity.
The system is not in anyway meant to replace teachers or aids, but to simply enhance their watchful eyes and increase safety. Although it cannot prevent a child from running off, it can provide an alert to chaperones, who are outnumbered by their students.
I am the last person to defend GPS technology, or any of this other Orwellian bullshit that seems to be the norm, but this is a non-story loaded with buzzwords that the submitter knew would immediately rile us up (it was enough to get me to RTFA, at least...). The technology is being used to supplement the daycare staff's supervision, and alert them early on when a child takes off. This clip-on is not going to prevent the child from intentionally running off, and an abductor will just remove it (if he's not an idiot as some are). However, if the child wanders off -- which believe me it happens all the time -- they can find him/her more quickly and not risk another child getting lost in the time spend looking for the first one.
Looking after maybe 1 or 2 children and this is going to happen sometimes. Looking after several dozen and this kind of solution seems practical. It's not like they're implanting something in the children to monitor their every move at home or initiate them into our totalitarian surveillance state of fear or what have you. Yes it has controversies (what is the GPS company going to do with the data? how hard would it be for some predator to intercept the data stream?), but not on the scale that the submitter has everyone worried about. Congratulations, you all have been trolled.
The article link is to a scraper site that runs most of the major ad networks, from Amazon to DoubleClick to Fox. Slashdot's "editors" have been had. Again.
The article was scraped from Physorg, which scraped it from Google News, which obtained it from Agence France-Presse.
This is a commercial product called "ChildChecker", from Purple Scout.
Ironically, at least taking your persthe GPS devices might help in this regard. It wouldn't interfere with their behavior but it would alert the adults if they wandered off too far. It actually makes it easier and safer to let kids play outside and do their own thing.
The stupid slashdot editor previewed one thing and posted another. Sorry for the jumbled first sentence.
No. They're in jail. They're not allowed to leave.
So the GPS kills two birds with one stone. The kids are easy to find if you do lose one and it's a lot easier to take them outside to play.
A little GPS tag isn't a climate of fear either. It's not an antikidnapping measure or anything silly like that.
Just build yourself a cat tracker. They're a famous DIY electronics project. As a bonus, when your niece isn't around you can track your cat. It really is interesting to see where they go (just not in real time).
The unspoken "cost," of course, is that our children are growing up in a climate of fear: They spend more time sitting indoors or being hovered over by helicopter parents ... but they are "safe" ... and putting on weight ... and failing to develop healthy social, physical, and problem-solving skills.
Perhaps the benefit of GPS trackers would be that we could then relax the other, more stifling measures a bit. For example, if you know you can instantly locate your kids at any time, you might be less reluctant to let them play outside.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Of course, given that the GPS is mounted on a reflective jacket, it would mean that if a child removes the reflective jacket for whatever reason (e.g. because of feeling hot after running around), the GPS will be removed as well./quote.
True that. A more robust implementation would permanently embed the GPS tracker device into sole of the child's shoe, and recharge its battery by capturing energy from acceleration/deceleration.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
No I'm not referring to the GPS, I'm referring to the high-fence walls around playgrounds, constant CCTV, double security gates that Richard_at_work referred to, we just don't have that in Sweden and I hope our society will never be so paranoid as to want something like that.
From what I understand this is a daycare where the kids are pretty much always out in nature, then I can understand the need for a GPS, but in general it does seem like overkill. The buddy system combined with a sufficient number of attentive teachers worked fine when I was a kid, we didn't even have those ridiculous bright green reflective vests they always seem to use now and we were fine.
Life isn't safe, never was. Too many people think that abductions and abuse is something invented in the 80's or 90's, but its been around forever.
I see the results of this over protection every day. Young people who don't know how to act after they get away from home in college. Acting out in a way that they should have done when they were 14 or 15. Why? because their parents, as part of keeping them safe, didn't give them a free moment, let them have as little unsupervised time as possible. So what we get are adult children, who are trying to grow up long after they should have.
The problem with "safety" is that there is never enough. It's why gym classes are banning dodgeball. You could probably eliminate more injuries and deaths by not allowing recess and keeping the kids off of playground swings. If they get too antsy because of lack of exercise, we can trank them up. Hell, probably half the children in my son's class were on Ritalin. But safety first, I guess.
But the biggest canard in people's arguments fir gps, and I think yours, is that it won't help a thing from the safety standpoint. All it does is transfer responsibility. Now instead of blaming the teacher, we'll be filing lawsuits over dead batteries, false alarm rates will make for panics, because gps isn't always exact.
Now - if you want something that will both help keep the kids safer, if they get lost or something like that. Get them a little gps transponder that they can control. If the little one becomes lost, they flip the switch, and the teacher's unit gives a little beep, and they can locate them. This will put the decision upon the child, a little responsibility that is sorely lacking in the maturing process at present. The training for the children can be a fun game for them. And after the games, which can be ongoing, then they know how it will work, and will be less tempted to "cry wolf".
They won't work at all for abductions though. That's a non starter.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The unspoken "cost," of course, is that our children are growing up in a climate of fear: They spend more time sitting indoors or being hovered over by helicopter parents
Well, the "good old" method, so popular 200-300 years ago, was that a peasant family makes 5 to 10 children, and if one or two die (as they were likely to, for various reasons) then it was just God's will and nothing could be done about it, and nobody would be overly concerned.
Can you sell an idea today that a child could wander off, fall into an underground tunnel and die - and that would be just about normal? If such a thing happens lawsuits will fly and the police will arrest a bunch of people.
I don't like the @children=("cattle","pets"); approach any more than you do, but that's how it is today. The old way had other socially beneficial side effects - the Darwin's Award was issued early and often. The price for that was higher attrition.
but not on the scale that the submitter has everyone worried about. Congratulations, you all have been trolled.
Yeah, TFS chose the wrong article to link to this week. He wanted the one about Rhode Island.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Where are those mod points when you need them? Mod parent up!
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
The GPS may reduce (not prevent, they're not infallible) something which is *already* low enough risk to be essentially a non-issue.
It's not cost-effective. There's on the order of half a million kids in kindergarten in Sweden, Buying a tracker-thingy may only cost $100, but that still adds up to $50 million (plus whatever the data-plan for these cost, they must have some kind of connectivity for transmitting the position)
$50 million to save on the order of 0.2 kids a year, is $250 million pro saved life.
Even if you restrict yourself to inside-sweden, there's a lot of things you can do that has a lot larger benefit, for the same cost.
From now Swedish kids need to buy portbale gps jammers
So? People do all kinds of non-cost effective things, particularly where their kids are concerned. If the daycare finds that having these things makes their customers happy and doesn't hurt the kids, what do you care?