CCTV nation: spying on kids are they gain independence is unspeakably sad

Screw solitude and giving loved ones space. Parents who like to video tape their child’s every move can now monitor and keep records of their lives when they’re away at summer camp. The routine is pretty simple. You upload a photo of your child’s face to the Bunk1 app, which uses facial recognition software. Whenever the camp commandants take a picture of the kinder at player and upload it to the service, parents get an alert asking “Is this your camper?” It might well be the most god-awful thing ever. But to the Washington Post, it’s mostly brilliant.

Read and weep:

When David Hiller’s two daughters checked into Camp Echo, a bucolic sleep-away camp in Upstate New York, they relinquished their cellphones for seven idyllic weeks away from their digital lives.

But not Hiller: His phone rings 10 times a day with notifications from the summer camp’s facial-recognition service, which alerts him whenever one of his girls is photographed enjoying their newfound independence, going water-skiing or making a new friend.

His daughters don’t really know about the facial-recognition part, he said. But for him and his wife, it’s quickly become a cherished summer pastime, alerting them instantly when the camp uploads its for-parents haul of more than 1,000 photos a day — many of which they end up looking through, just in case.

Points to consider:

1. Why not just let the nippers have their phones? Why is not having your phones “idyllic”? Mum and dad seem to be on theirs all the bloody time. And they love it.
2. Why is letting strangers take photos of children all day a good thing?
3. What “newfound independence”? Everything they do is being recorded, observed and judged. A child in the frame is about as independent as a lab mouse in a cage.
4. Why don’t the children know what’s going on in their own lives?
5. Other parents of kids who look like yours get to watch them too?
6. A huge database stores the images and names of all the kinder. What could possibly go wrong?
7. It all looks like a desperate attempt by parents to make a connection with their children. Give them space. Protect their fullest freedom and development by protecting their right to be alone.

Zu kampers vant more?

“It’s all about building this one-way window into the camper’s experience: The parent gets to see in, but the camper’s not distracted from what’s going on,” said Bunk1 president Rob Burns, a former camp counselor himself. “These are parents who are involved in everything their kid does, and that doesn’t go away when the kid is at camp.”

We have only glimpsed the hell to come…

Anorak

Posted: 12th, August 2019 | In: News, Technology Comment | TrackBack | Permalink