Would you be in favour of a tracking device for your child?

General General

For Forks Sake wrote: »

Plenty, if it's running Apples mapping software.

Your child is in: Longford International Airport.

iguana

Gauss wrote: »

Why not just get rid of seat belts, they won't always save your life.

For one car crashes are far more common than abductions and parents should really be far more concerned with the best types of car seats rather than GPS trackers.

H2UMrsRobinson

A compromise would be a device that could only be activated by police when a child actually goes missing. I'm not sure of the technology though that would enable such a device. The cost and implementation would more than likely far outweigh the benefits. While we're dawdling in the land of science fiction, we may as well develop a more reliable truth serum that can be administered to potential suspects to make them "tell all"

noxqs

Lets play with some numbers.

How many children are there? Lets say 1,000,000 for the sake of argument.

A GPS transmitter costs 40 euros approximately from what I can tell. Chinese apparatus, probably not going to last or be reliable for years, not to mention they're pretty big. Anyways,

40 million euros to purchase.

Now lets talk about the IT infrastructure and software to track this, we know public IT systems can't cost less than 100 million euros because of bureaucracy and the public sector mismanagement of projects. Add 50 millions to that to get it to work.

Now add cost of maintenance, and manning tracking stations.

We're into 200 million euros at the very least.

Now how much do we spend on police per year? Should the cost be tax payer cost to cover all children or should families choose to buy themselves? If the first one, how much do we spend on police as it is, and is such an expenditure warranted given the very small benefit it may provide, given the VERY slim chance an abductor wouldnt remove the device instantly and throw it out the van?

If people had to opt to buy, what is the likelihood of being abducted in the first place, and what is the likelihood from that, the child was wearing a GPS device in the first place, and from that what is the likelihood its not removed instantly thus rendering it useless?

Basically if you do some basic math and think a little about the implications, the technology that doesn't exist yet, the costs and the benefits or lack of(I can remove a GPS device with a box cutter in less than 10 seconds), and the inconvenience to the children carrying around such a device and the general perception that everyone is a pedo about to abduct kids, thus why we need this and the sociological implications of a society of mistrust.

Is it worth it?

My answer: No. And it never will be.

Just mind your kids, and tell them never to go or trust strangers. Cost: Already included in cost of raising children. Benefit: Probably higher than a GPS device.

We have to accept the fact that sometimes bad people do bad things and whatever we come up with as "once and for all" solutions probably would have more negative consequences than positive. Yes there is few things sadder than a child murder/rape/abduction but we can't be everywhere, all the time, watching everyone.

Gauss

noxqs wrote: »

How many kids gets abducted by NON family members ?

Almost none?

Ever heard of rational thought and proportionality? It would cost a fortune for no perceivable benefit. Not to mention removing a tracking device thats outside the body is trivial, and surely an abductor would remove this.

A subcutaneous tracking device wont work unless you invent magic batteries that doesnt exist. Pacemakers are still charged from external sources regularly.

Read Freakonomics for a bit of perspective on these kind of things.

I've read Freakinomics, there are other instances where a GPS device could be useful such as your child getting lost.

Gauss

opti0nal wrote: »

Gauss wrote: »

Yea there is......use a GPS device, that could prevent or foil potential absuctions.

Link please, so we can see what one looks like and how it works?

I'm speaking hypothetically, I'm sure one could be made that is practical.

Gauss

noxqs wrote: »

Vicar in a tutu wrote: »

Very flippant thing to say when were discussing the lives of young children, I really dont see any harm in a young child with a tracking device in their runners or whatever, if it means there's a chance he / she could be found before its too late if abducted then why not?

You didn't read my posts or didn't understand the message in them.

Just because its a young child and its emotional, it doesn't mean we should apply hundreds of millions of GPS tracking devices on kids, for the off chance they may get abducted. It doesn't make sense.

"We" don't have to apply hundreds of millions of devices. It could be the parent's choice to purchase such a device.

Gauss

noxqs wrote: »

Lets play with some numbers.

How many children are there? Lets say 1,000,000 for the sake of argument.

A GPS transmitter costs 40 euros approximately from what I can tell. Chinese apparatus, probably not going to last or be reliable for years, not to mention they're pretty big. Anyways,

40 million euros to purchase.

Now lets talk about the IT infrastructure and software to track this, we know public IT systems can't cost less than 100 million euros because of bureaucracy and the public sector mismanagement of projects. Add 50 millions to that to get it to work.

Now add cost of maintenance, and manning tracking stations.

We're into 200 million euros at the very least.

Now how much do we spend on police per year? Should the cost be tax payer cost to cover all children or should families choose to buy themselves? If the first one, how much do we spend on police as it is, and is such an expenditure warranted given the very small benefit it may provide, given the VERY slim chance an abductor wouldnt remove the device instantly and throw it out the van?

If people had to opt to buy, what is the likelihood of being abducted in the first place, and what is the likelihood from that, the child was wearing a GPS device in the first place, and from that what is the likelihood its not removed instantly thus rendering it useless?

Basically if you do some basic math and think a little about the implications, the technology that doesn't exist yet, the costs and the benefits or lack of(I can remove a GPS device with a box cutter in less than 10 seconds), and the inconvenience to the children carrying around such a device and the general perception that everyone is a pedo about to abduct kids, thus why we need this and the sociological implications of a society of mistrust.

Is it worth it?

My answer: No. And it never will be.

Just mind your kids, and tell them never to go or trust strangers. Cost: Already included in cost of raising children. Benefit: Probably higher than a GPS device.

We have to accept the fact that sometimes bad people do bad things and whatever we come up with as "once and for all" solutions probably would have more negative consequences than positive. Yes there is few things sadder than a child murder/rape/abduction but we can't be everywhere, all the time, watching everyone.

You can't say it's not worth it for everyone. You don't now how much a one particular parents worry about their children. If it reduced chronic worry then it would be worth it for that parent.

noxqs

You are all ignoring the points and then go off on not one but several a classic logical fallacies.

Appeal to Emotion
Appeal to Fear
Wishful thinking

I am done here, you can't argue against logical fallacies..

opti0nal

Gauss wrote: »

You can't say it's not worth it for everyone. You don't now how much a one particular parents worry about their children. If it reduced chronic worry then it would be worth it for that parent.

Ok so, your device is an imaginery device, it's totally reliable and accurate, needs no batteries, weighs nothing and costs nothing to operate.

What about the child's right to privacy?

Scanlas The 2nd

opti0nal wrote: »

Gauss wrote: »

You can't say it's not worth it for everyone. You don't now how much a one particular parents worry about their children. If it reduced chronic worry then it would be worth it for that parent.

Ok so, your device is an imaginery device, it's totally reliable and accurate, needs no batteries, weighs nothing and costs nothing to operate.

What about the child's right to privacy?

Yes the device is completely practical.

As for the child's right to privacy, they have it, the parent just knows where they are.

opti0nal

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

Yes the device is completely practical.

But does not exist.

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

As for the child's right to privacy, they have it, the parent just knows where they are.

What part of the word 'privacy' do you not understand?

ceegee

Just give your kids loads of promotional kitkats. Let nestle track them.

Bonus: nobody wants to abduct a fattie

Scanlas The 2nd

opti0nal wrote: »

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

Yes the device is completely practical.

But does not exist.

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

As for the child's right to privacy, they have it, the parent just knows where they are.

What part of the word 'privacy' do you not understand?

Do you think a 3 year old cares that their privacy is being infringed?

I'm not aware what devices are currently on the market, my argument is that if they are practical then it is a good idea. If they aren't practical I wouldn't be in favour.

tfitzgerald

I would be in favour of these . And as for the cost the people on here saying they would be too expensive obviously have no children of their own

iguana

tfitzgerald wrote: »

I would be in favour of these . And as for the cost the people on here saying they would be too expensive obviously have no children of their own

Oh come off it. This is nothing but media induced hyperbole and band wagon jumping. Being a parent doesn't make someone an expert in good sense and child safety. In fact we* live in a country where in spite of all the evidence about the massively increased safety benefits of keeping your child turned rear facing in a car until they are 5/6 it's almost impossible to buy an extended rear facing seat in a shop because consumers (ie parents) prefer to turn their child toward them for no sensible reason. Yet car crashes happen nearly everyday and abductions almost never do.

*I actually live in Wales but the same is true here.

Sofiztikated

iguana wrote: »

Oh come off it. This is nothing but media induced hyperbole and band wagon jumping. Being a parent doesn't make someone an expert in good sense and child safety. In fact we* live in a country where in spite of all the evidence about the massively increased safety benefits of keeping your child turned rear facing in a car until they are 5/6 it's almost impossible to buy an extended rear facing seat in a shop because consumers (ie parents) prefer to turn their child toward them for no sensible reason. Yet car crashes happen nearly everyday and abductions almost never do.

*I actually live in Wales but the same is true here.

This.

Child abductions are rare.

Car crashes are a daily occurance. Yet people still seem to have issues with seat belts, and restraining children in cars. Every day, I can spot at least one example of kids bouncing about in the back, front, boot of cars.

Be honest, and really BE honest. How often do you need to know the precise location of your child?

Going for the "OH PEDOFILES MIGHT EAT MY 19YR OLD BABY!!!1!11!!one!!" route is ridiculous. How many of us here could disappear for hours when we were younger, only to appear for dinner, and piss off back out the door again, and really, what harm has it done us? My parents made it clear to me not to go off with strangers, and I didn't. And in todays world, children are smarter and more aware of the world, younger and younger.

Why not afford your own children the same luxury of enjoying their childhood, worry about what is really affecting your children. Namely them being little fatties.

MrTsSnickers

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

Yes the device is completely practical.

As for the child's right to privacy, they have it, the parent just knows where they are.

well the parents and the staff members of the company that is "tracking" your children. Or the people maintaining the satellites and all of the people that have access to the data on the satellites or the outsourced company that is paid to deal with the massive amounts of data. Do you trust them with yours and your children's data. Including where you go day to day, family trip trends, where you shop? Do you think there's not a market for this kind of information?

Yes, just the parents would know where a child is. Fantastic. Also, have you ever used a sat nav that didn't work? I have. What if the device fails completely? You rest your childs safety on a device somewhere on/in the child. Jesus H Christ, do you people really have no concept of privacy at all.

as an aside, I know a course coordinator at a UNIVERSITY, he tells me the amount of parents that ring in on behalf of little snowflake is incredible. This kind of nonsense is what you set yourself and your child up for if you do not let them figure out the world to some extent.

opti0nal

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

Do you think a 3 year old cares that their privacy is being infringed?

Anybody I know with a three year old does not allow them to be out and about on their own. The only time they're out of sight of a supervising adult would be in their own bedrooms. A GPS tracking device is not needed at that age and would probably constitute a safety risk to the child.

At what age does a child's personal privacy begin to count?

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

I'm not aware what devices are currently on the market, my argument is that if they are practical then it is a good idea. If they aren't practical I wouldn't be in favour.

I published a picture of one earlier. It's about the size of a smartphone. It uses a secure strap that can only be opened with special tools, must be re-charged daily and has to have a dedicated phone account for transmitting the location data to the tracking server. An account is needed with the monitoring service. Not sure if it's effective indoors. These are used for tracking convicts on probation whose movements are limited by direction of a court.

So far the arguments have been based on a parent's needs. What is the emotional cost to a child knowing that he or she is constantly being tracked? That any side-trip to a friend or shopping mall can be detected and questioned on their return?

tfitzgerald

iguana wrote: »

Oh come off it. This is nothing but media induced hyperbole and band wagon jumping. Being a parent doesn't make someone an expert in good sense and child safety. In fact we* live in a country where in spite of all the evidence about the massively increased safety benefits of keeping your child turned rear facing in a car until they are 5/6 it's almost impossible to buy an extended rear facing seat in a shop because consumers (ie parents) prefer to turn their child toward them for no sensible reason. Yet car crashes happen nearly everyday and abductions almost never do.

*I actually live in Wales but the same is true here.

Are you serious .because i want to keep my children safe im jumping on some bandwagon ffs.then you go on about car seats faceing the wrong way . legally here if the child is in the front seat the seat has to be rear facing so i dont know what your on about leave me to take of my children and you look after your cats

Madam_X

You'd keep your children safe without this device, is the point she's making. The bandwagon point is re the way people are treating the idea as so vital when most managed thus far without it and child abductions are exceptionally rare. It wasn't treated as essential until someone mentioned it, which is total bandwagon-jumping. It reminds me of Homer wanting to buy a rock off Lisa to keep tigers away.

Nobody's saying you shouldn't be vigilant about child safety, they ARE saying though that hysteria doesn't help anyone.

iguana

tfitzgerald wrote: »

Are you serious .because i want to keep my children safe im jumping on some bandwagon ffs.then you go on about car seats faceing the wrong way . legally here if the child is in the front seat the seat has to be rear facing so i dont know what your on about leave me to take of my children and you look after your cats

Good work on missing the point spectacularly but still trying to be patronising. The point I made was that if you want to make your children as safe as possible in a car they should be seated rear-facing until their necks are strong enough. This is at some point around 5-6 years of age, so until that point they should be rear facing. I'm not talking about infants in the front seat, I'm talking about right up until they are ready to move from car seat to booster at about 25kg weight.

Considering the fact that you clearly don't have a clue about the safest way, by far, for your children to be restrained in a car I am most certainly serious about you jumping on a bandwagon. Abductions are extremely rare, car crashes are common. If your children's safety was really paramount here you'd know all about extended rear facing and if you have children under 6 that's how they'd be travelling because while hopefully neither will happen, if one does it's so many more thousands of times more likely to be a car crash.

As I said, in Ireland and the UK it's almost impossible to buy such a seat in a shop and that's because the shops believe that most parents prefer tradition to safety. It's why I had to order my son's* ERF seat from Sweden.

*Nice try at condescension but you sure as shít ain't the only parent on boards - oh and get your eyes tested - the animals in my av are quite clearly dogs not cats.:)

Capt'n Midnight

Wattle wrote: »

But what if pervert mechanics develop some sort of blocking device? Paedo-gedden that's what.

A windowless van is most of the way to being a Faraday cage already.

Capt'n Midnight

noxqs wrote: »

Oh I know. Why dont we put a GPS on everyone ... This way all crime will either be documented OR we will find who did any crime, instantly!!!

Already done. It's called a mobile phone.

peil

To me, it's like terrorism. They try to scare us into thinking terrorists are everywhere. If so, Croker and the square shopping centre would be the most dangerous places in the world! And let's say we barely have any terrorists, so we go to America. There has got to be hundreds of times more public venues than here. And how many are bombed or attacked? Basically none. Child abduction isn't something that could happen to just anyone in a developed country. It's like being struck by lightning, but because of the media and the nature of the crime, we've become petrified. Be more afraid your child will get knocked down. How much more common is that? 140 children were abducted in Ireland in 2010. The vast majority of these were taken by their parents after relationships broke down.
source:http://www.independent.ie/national-news/more-than-one-child-abducted-every-week-last-year-2617760.html

Glenn_Flinn

Child abduction is an incredibly rare thing. If you're afraid of your child being abducted you'd want to be absolutely mortified of driving a car.

Glenn_Flinn

girl in the striped socks wrote: »

Yeah I would be.
But I don't think a necklace or bracelet would work properly, too easy to remove if needed.
I'd be thinking more along the lines of a microchip under the skin, kinda like one a dog gets.

Shaking my head at this grotesque sheepleness.

You'll be the first to voluntarily admit yourself to the FEMA camps on government request for your "protection".

Scanlas The 2nd

Glenn_Flinn wrote: »

Child abduction is an incredibly rare thing. If you're afraid of your child being abducted you'd want to be absolutely mortified of driving a car.

What I'd be more worried about would be them getting lost or stuck somewhere like down a ditch, there are many reasons a discrete practical device could be useful, not just abduction.