the tech-enabled surveillance of children
Every now and then, I'll be exposed to a world I have otherwise nothing to do with: Child surveillance.
What I see is infuriating.
Not only are children nowadays pressured by their parents to turn location services on their devices on, but the parents also set up notifications for when the child arrives and leaves a place and alerts for when they stray from the path. They also get weekly, if not daily updates about what their child did at school via an app or a message by the teacher directly.
This is nuts! This is not normal. This is not how I grew up and this is not how those parents have grown up either. They know it is absolutely possible to do without, just like it has always been pre-2015, but they choose this. Parents' paranoia is allowed to completely overrule the child's own right to privacy, completely unchecked. Emotions run high with anything child-related, so anything goes that could potentially even help the safety of a child a little. The trade-offs are ignored.
- You don't show your child you trust them, so why should they trust you? You model complete distrust and that they are suspicious by default.
- They have no space where they can just explore how to be and make mistakes or act out without being seen and immediately reported on.
- It's not safe to test boundaries or make mistakes, because instead of getting to make that mistake and dealing with the fallout later (or it never coming out), their transgressions are immediately recorded, noticed, and punished.
- Abusive parents have even more pathways to abuse, control, and isolate. Instead of trying to make abusers happy trying to live your life and jumping through hoops, it's easier to just give in and stay home and do what you're told.
- You're completely normalizing state surveillance and companies snooping on us and present it as a good thing.
- The fear of recordings and repression makes them obedient in advance, altering normal development. They are much more likely to just act in ways that their parents want them to instead of finding their own selves and path. This is especially bad for queer children.
- You are raising a terrific liar, and forcing your child to download scummy circumvention methods onto their devices.
A newsletter I subscribe to (Dense Discovery) has a section advertising apps and services, and in a recent one, I was shocked to see that they would advertise what's probably the worst child surveillance tech I have seen in a while:
"Bark is a parental control system that uses AI to scan texts, social media, images and videos across 30+ apps. It offers an app for existing devices (iPhone & Android) but also, it seems, custom hardware. The goal is to alert parents of potential dangers like bullying, self-harm content or predatory behaviour. It outsources parental vigilance to an algorithm, which is either reassuring or deeply unsettling depending on your stance on digital surveillance and trust. (Looks like it’s currently only available in the US, South Africa and Australia.)"
This isn't quirky or an issue to be neutral about; this is completely dystopian, and I'd expect more people to be deeply uncomfortable with this shit and resisting it, child or not. What exactly is "reassuring" about any of this? You are way too comfortable making money off of advertising the complete dehumanization of children.
You are treating them worse than prisoners, in ways you would never ever accept, in ways that wasn't even possible yet when you were a child!
You know what also counts as "child protection"? Protecting their human rights.
"Everyone has the right to respect for his or her private and family life, home and communications."
"1. Everyone has the right to the protection of personal data concerning him or her."
2. Such data must be processed fairly for specified purposes and on the basis of the consent of the person concerned or some other legitimate basis laid down by law. Everyone has the right of access to data which has been collected concerning him or her, and the right to have it rectified.
in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 7 and 8.
"1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
in the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 8.
"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."
in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 17.
And very similarly:
"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."
in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12.
These are not exclusively about protecting people from the state, but having privacy in general.
There are also the constitutional rights, whose wording depends on where you live. It is likely not mentioned explicitly in there, but inferred.
In Germany, for example, the right to informational self-determination (control over your data + privacy) is inferred from the general right of personality and privacy from Article 2(1) in connection to Article 1(1) Grundgesetz (GG).
"(1) Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority."
"(1) Every person shall have the right to free development of his personality insofar as he does not violate the rights of others or offend against the constitutional order or the moral law."
People do not just begin to be people with rights when they reach adulthood. We should act accordingly.
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