Should you GPS TRACK your Children?

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Ho yes. Definitely getting this, but it ain't for a kid. 

[Corez]

I agree with you Linus I would feel very uncomfortable giving this to my child (if I had one).

 

I really hate that law agencies can use CCTV with facial recognition could track me pretty much everywhere I go, I don't feel that I should impose this on my kid incase they feel that if it is ok for my parent to do it, it must be ok for my government to do it too. Weather through GPS or for example monitoring their internet usage (which is now law in the UK where I live) when they are older. I feel this kind of president is dangers to set for my children, unfortunately I think that so many parents will do it without considering the potential seen, or unseen ramifications of tracking your children.

 

With that said I am interested in this product for a different purpose, I would like to strap one to my bike so if anyone tried to steal it I could track them with it.

[Natsoup]

6 hours ago, mbryant said:

I disagree, I think this is perfect for children 4 - 8 years old. Especially when an 8 year old could simply clip it to their bag and not necessarily have it on their person at all times. Does it have a way to be abused? I'm sure it does, but what doesn't?

As for older children, 10 and up I feel that it may be a bit much and at that point, just get your kid a GO phone. I see the snow fox being very useful in cases where a parent takes their kid to a crowded public place like a mall or park. The security of your 3 - 8 year old is far more important than their "privacy" what the hell kind of private thing does a kid in that age range do anyway? Again I don't find this device "detrimental" to letting a kid be a kid until about 9 or 10 years of age. 

I was referring to more 10 and up.

[xnamkcor]

3 hours ago, he10393 said:

In our main park, Kings Park which is huge and right in the centre of Perth a kid was playing last week and a guy ran up ,grabbed him and ran off!

The kid was screaming and the parents and others chased the guy who eventually dropped him and ran off into the bush.

Had this guy succeeded in snatching this kid a tracker might have been the only way locate him.

Once a kid is too big to be carried off and hopefully also has a bit of sense then probably a tracker would be going too far.

The guy has not yet been arrested!

Are buses that go from Perth to Sydney common?

2 hours ago, Freeman said:

I'm pretty disappointed that Linus, as a motorcyclist, doesn't know this. GPS trackers with GSM modules have been used on motorcycles for years and they are pretty useless. A small GSM disruptor is cheap and easy to use, so even lowlife thieves have them. Also, stealing children is a bit more serious business, so I can't imagine those people not having them already.

The only small advantage the GPS tracker on a motorcycle provides, is that sometimes, the crooks will leave it out in the woods for a few days and check if somebody comes for it, because they are too lazy to actually look for the tracker. Unfortunately this is a bit difficult to do with a kids and the tracker is harder to hide, so the only real use is for over controlling parents who want to stalk their kids.

Snatching kids is more of a crime of passion than stealing a motorcycle. They're not exactly going out and kitting themselves up for the crime. Also, how "useless" is the GPS when your motorcycle just happened to wander off? Or if your motorcycle decided to wander out the front door to go for a walk in the morning?

[Freeman]

4 minutes ago, xnamkcor said:

Are buses that go from Perth to Sydney common?

Snatching kids is more of a crime of passion than stealing a motorcycle. They're not exactly going out and kitting themselves up for the crime. Also, how "useless" is the GPS when your motorcycle just happened to wander off? Or if your motorcycle decided to wander out the front door to go for a walk in the morning?

When you try to snatch a kid without the setup, you stand no chance of succeeding. Police responds really fast to this, there are CCTV cameras everywhere, thermovision is on most police helicopters and those can be dispatched in few minutes, no you really don´t just take a kid.

As for wandering off, If you don´t count the "supermarket" cases, it´s pretty much always out of their free will and in that case, he/she will ofc just throw away the tracker.

[corrado33]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Crime rates has been going down for a long time now (might be going back up though, I am not sure about the last  ~2 years). So "back in the day" violent crimes were more common than they are today.

It was MORE dangerous in the old days.

 

People nowadays are just very overprotective. We are safer now than ever, but people think it is more dangerous.

 

Sorry, but your source doesn't cover nearly as much as you want it to cover. It only goes back to the 1990s, one of the most violent time periods of recent memory. Violent crime peaked in the late 80s. I was referring to the 50s and 60s, the times of the lowest violent crime in the entire century. 

 

http://www.jrsa.org/projects/Historical.pdf

 

So again, I will reiterate, back in the 50s and 60s, neighborhoods were more safe. 

 

[KuJoe]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Except this won't prevent anything. This is a reactive device, not a proactive one. So unless you plan on looking at it every single minute your child is out, at best you will get a message that if you start traveling right now, you will only be 10 minutes behind the abductor! Assuming the abductor doesn't just take this massive and clearly visible GPS tracker and throws it away, in which case you will be sitting at home thinking your child is safe while it is being taken away.

 

By the way, your child is as likely to be hit by lighting as it is being kidnapped. Are you going to equip your child with a grounded lighting rod too? That costs less than 10 dollars a month and will protect your child more than this device does.

Let's just ignore the kidnapping aspect, imagine my child is hiking and doesn't check in at the specified time we agreed upon. I go on my phone or computer and know where to start looking at least. Also, I've decided that if I'm going to do this then I'm going to create my own device instead of using a commercially available one. I have a cheaper solution for data and can make something much smaller with better battery life for less than $100 and minimal skill. I just measured out the dimensions and I can even embed the device in my child's shoe if I wanted to.

 

We can also completely ignore the child aspect of the device and imagine having one of these in your vehicle. You wake up one morning and your car is gone or you finish shopping and you find your car no longer in the parking lot or you let somebody else borrow the car. A car thief won't be looking in the trunk for a GPS device that they've never seen before.

 

But since the topic is about kidnapping, I'll touch on that also. Yes, this is a reactive device but how is that a bad thing? It's better than nothing right? This tracker in particular is nice because it allows communicating with the child but there are plenty more out there that just strictly allow GPS tracking and are much more discreet. For $10/month this device is cheaper than a cell phone and it's better than nothing.

[RevoltTrain]

While I would not be comfortable being GPS tracked. Some cases it may be necessary. Especially in a huge city like Chicago, LA, or NY

 

But for the majority of people. I just don't see this being proper

[Exprima]

I don't really see anything new here. LG's GizmoPals have been a thing for a while.

[xnamkcor]

4 hours ago, Freeman said:

When you try to snatch a kid without the setup, you stand no chance of succeeding. Police responds really fast to this, there are CCTV cameras everywhere, thermovision is on most police helicopters and those can be dispatched in few minutes, no you really don´t just take a kid.

As for wandering off, If you don´t count the "supermarket" cases, it´s pretty much always out of their free will and in that case, he/she will ofc just throw away the tracker.

Who would throw the tracker away? The child? You do realise that children wandering off is mostly because children are stupid, not because they have some grand plan to escape?

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, corrado33 said:

Sorry, but your source doesn't cover nearly as much as you want it to cover. It only goes back to the 1990s, one of the most violent time periods of recent memory. Violent crime peaked in the late 80s. I was referring to the 50s and 60s, the times of the lowest violent crime in the entire century. 

 

http://www.jrsa.org/projects/Historical.pdf

 

So again, I will reiterate, back in the 50s and 60s, neighborhoods were more safe.

Except your source doesn't cover the last 20 years, so it is pretty irrelevant to this conversation about crime rates then vs now.

And I don't really see how what happened 60 years ago is relevant because nobody in their ~70s is going to get a child today and go "it is more dangerous today than in my childhood, so you need this".

My point was that Linus and everyone else here that's above 20 grew up in a much more dangerous environment than children growing up today. Linus' parents were probably not worried about Linus to the point where he wasn't allowed to go outside without a tracking device, and the need for one is lower today than it was when he grew up.

 

 

Also, you're not reiterating because you never specified what time period you were talking about.

The person you were replying to is 22 and you said that "times have changed" in response to him. That implies that you are talking about the time when he was growing up, not a time period 40 years before he was born.

 

Here are some sources that might interest you:

Quote

The plunge in homicides after that meant that firearm homicide rates in the late 2000s were equal to those not seen since the early 1960s.

 

Quote

 

The last time the crime rate for serious crime fell to these levels, gasoline cost 29 cents a gallon and the average income for a working American was $5,807. That was 1963.

 

 

The problem is that people think crimes are going up, when they have been dropping like a rock since they were growing up.

Here is an interesting article which looks at crime statistics and how they compare to peoples' perception of crime. The conclusion is that people are more scared of crimes today, than they were in the 90's, when there was waaaaay more crimes.

 

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, KuJoe said:

Let's just ignore the kidnapping aspect, imagine my child is hiking and doesn't check in at the specified time we agreed upon. I go on my phone or computer and know where to start looking at least. Also, I've decided that if I'm going to do this then I'm going to create my own device instead of using a commercially available one. I have a cheaper solution for data and can make something much smaller with better battery life for less than $100 and minimal skill. I just measured out the dimensions and I can even embed the device in my child's shoe if I wanted to.

Why not just give him a phone if you are that worried about him being out, hiking?

 

2 hours ago, KuJoe said:

We can also completely ignore the child aspect of the device and imagine having one of these in your vehicle. You wake up one morning and your car is gone or you finish shopping and you find your car no longer in the parking lot or you let somebody else borrow the car. A car thief won't be looking in the trunk for a GPS device that they've never seen before.

How often do you have your car stolen? Let me tell you how many times it has happened to me. 0.

Let me tell you how many times it has happened to people I know. 0.

If your car gets stolen left and right then I think you need to move to a better place.

 

 

2 hours ago, KuJoe said:

But since the topic is about kidnapping, I'll touch on that also. Yes, this is a reactive device but how is that a bad thing? It's better than nothing right? This tracker in particular is nice because it allows communicating with the child but there are plenty more out there that just strictly allow GPS tracking and are much more discreet. For $10/month this device is cheaper than a cell phone and it's better than nothing.

It is also way more expensive than nothing, and provides about as much protection as nothing. This is just a company feeding on irrational fears from parents.

Any kidnapper (which again, is about as likely as your child getting struck by lighting) will just rip that thing off and throw it away.

This device does jack shit, except make helicopter parents even more obsessed with tracking their children. Did little Jimmy stand still for 5 minutes? Better get in the car and drive to him to make sure he didn't get fried by lightning!

 

It is bad because it is a reactive device. It requires you to either look at your phone and tracking your child every moment he/she is out playing, which is really stressful for the parent. Or you don't look at it at which point it just gives you a false sense of security, because you think your child is safe while in reality someone might have just thrown that thing away and it's just lying there on the ground.

 

Statistically speaking, you are safer leaving your child with a complete stranger, than to leave it with your spouse at the park. 3% of child homicides are caused by strangers. 63% by parents (page 7). That's how safe the world is. Linus should be more worried about his wife killing or abducting his children, than a stranger abducting them.

He should also be more worried that lighting might strike one of his children than someone kidnapping them.

[Freeman]

31 minutes ago, xnamkcor said:

Who would throw the tracker away? The child? You do realise that children wandering off is mostly because children are stupid, not because they have some grand plan to escape?

No, children wander off because they are angry or depressed and sad. In the first case they would throw away the tracker, to show it to their parents. When they are depressed, they just wouldn´t want the human contact, they want to be away from everything, so of course they would throw it out.

Plus, having a tracker on you will surely go a long way to make a depressed kid even more depressed.

[KuJoe]

19 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

<snip>

Why are you bothered by parents who are concerned about their children?

[xnamkcor]

5 minutes ago, Freeman said:

No, children wander off because they are angry or depressed and sad. In the first case they would throw away the tracker, to show it to their parents. When they are depressed, they just wouldn´t want the human contact, they want to be away from everything, so of course they would throw it out.

Plus, having a tracker on you will surely go a long way to make a depressed kid even more depressed.

You're talking about running away. Which is different from wandering off.

[trag1c]

14 hours ago, Fungal said:

This may be a little off topic but I have a great example of this. So I was camping with my cousins, and so my cousin (who has the biggest helicopter parents) decided to cut her pancakes by herself, she cut her finger with a plastic butter knife and started crying..... She was 12....

Beautifle!

[The Knome]

On 31/01/2017 at 7:51 PM, Natsoup said:

Taken too far. Kids won't be allowed to be kids anymore. I may only be 22, but if I had a gps strapped on me for all of my years before I left home, I would be a much less interesting person than I am now, that's for sure.

Yeah,,,,, thinking back I have done some chequered things in my time too.
As to a little blue box? it sticks out a mile! whats to actually stop someone just throwing it out the window kidnapping a child?

And if your kid wanders off WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING AS A PARENT?
Its not that hard to keep an eye on them. My own is taught she can wander, but must be in my line of sight at all times and she's had a decent understanding of that since the age of 3. I can wonder in any shop, park or otherwise and see her from the corner of my eye at all times. Get a group of parents who know each other we keep an eye on each others kids too. 

By the time she is 11 she will be given a greater freedom and taught well in advance about her own personal safety.
Christ I used to ride my bike 5 miles to high school every day (yes, been hit by cars on that commute), and we had some really sketchy high crime areas. I used to get up early with my mates, ride our bikes 50 miles to the sea side and 50 miles back. And that was arguably safer,,, why? older, wiser, more alert, and in a group. Mobiles were bricks, reception was crap, we gave our parents a quick call when we could.

 

[LAwLz]

41 minutes ago, KuJoe said:

Why are you bothered by parents who are concerned about their children?

I am bothered by companies taking advantage of fear-mongering, and people wasting money.

Besides, helicopter parenting can be damaging to the development of a child. Children need some freedom and risk taking.

 

This just seems to encourage parents to go towards the two extremes.

The one extreme which will monitor them every single second because they think there are child molesters around every corner. They are both harming themselves with stress and robbing their children of freedom.

The other extreme is the one which buys this to get a false sense of security. The type of parent that will sit and browse Facebook while their kid runs out into traffic because "I don't need to pay attention because I got this GPS tracker on my kid".

[xnamkcor]

7 minutes ago, The Knome said:

Yeah,,,,, thinking back I have done some chequered things in my time too.
As to a little blue box? it sticks out a mile! whats to actually stop someone just throwing it out the window kidnapping a child?

And if your kid wanders off WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING AS A PARENT?
Its not that hard to keep an eye on them. My own is taught she can wander, but must be in my line of sight at all times and she's had a decent understanding of that since the age of 3. I can wonder in any shop, park or otherwise and see her from the corner of my eye at all times. Get a group of parents who know each other we keep an eye on each others kids too. 

By the time she is 11 she will be given a greater freedom and taught well in advance about her own personal safety.
Christ I used to ride my bike 5 miles to high school every day (yes, been hit by cars on that commute), and we had some really sketchy high crime areas. I used to get up early with my mates, ride our bikes 50 miles to the sea side and 50 miles back. And that was arguably safer,,, why? older, wiser, more alert, and in a group. Mobiles were bricks, reception was crap, we gave our parents a quick call when we could.

 

If you have the option to give you that much more of a chance to find your child in the case of you or your child slipping up, what the hell are you doing as a parent?

Seatbelts? Why did you get in an accident in the first place?

[KuJoe]

6 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I am bothered by companies taking advantage of fear-mongering, and people wasting money.

Besides, helicopter parenting can be damaging to the development of a child. Children need some freedom and risk taking.

 

This just seems to encourage parents to go towards the two extremes.

The one extreme which will monitor them every single second because they think there are child molesters around every corner. They are both harming themselves with stress and robbing their children of freedom.

The other extreme is the one which buys this to get a false sense of security. The type of parent that will sit and browse Facebook while their kid runs out into traffic because "I don't need to pay attention because I got this GPS tracker on my kid".

You need to be more optimistic, when you look for only the bad things you won't see the good things.

[Remilia25]

not so sure if that GPS would be that accurate in my country second would be privacy its wireless so hacking it and developing or remaking the app is easy there is also the factor of letting your kids enjoy themselves be adventurous and yet be responsible giving one of these to a kid has the potential to restrict their movement too for example and I mean it almost every kid does this I say I'm going here and yet I'm going there there is also the fact that here in my country kids are taught how to defend or fight back from an early age and forward

[he10393]

So what you guy's are saying is because the tracker could be found there's no point in trying to use one in the first place?

Clearly you don't have children.

Parent's don't stalk their children any more than 'spy' on them when their out playing.

Chances of a paedophile having a GPS disruptor are zero in Australia and as you may all know in cases of child abduction it's the first hour that's critical in recovering the child alive if they've not been killed out of hand. No pervert having snatched a child is going to hang around searching the child and attracting attention, they usually flee with their victim to a more secluded place.Nor are they going to search for something mobile to drop a tracker on as a false trail, if they found one they would ditch it there and then.

At the end of the day no technology is going to be perfect but we try to do the best we can especially when it comes to protecting our children.

[LAwLz]

9 hours ago, KuJoe said:

You need to be more optimistic, when you look for only the bad things you won't see the good things.

Right back at you. You are paying 10 dollars a month for protection against something that is less likely to happen than getting struck by lightning. 

[KuJoe]

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Right back at you. You are paying 10 dollars a month for protection against something that is less likely to happen than getting struck by lightning. 

I am not paying $10 a month.

[Murdoch]

On 01/02/2017 at 6:34 AM, KuJoe said:

I am getting one of these ASAP. @LinusTech made a statement in the video that convinced me to get one, if something ever happened that I could have prevented for $10/month I would never be able to live with myself.

 

Forget the $10 a month, if something ever happened. How much would Linus regret making that skit of his kid being lured into a car with sweets, and then it speeding off.

 

Jeez.

[xnamkcor]

On 2/1/2017 at 5:06 AM, LAwLz said:

By the way, your child is as likely to be hit by lighting as it is being kidnapped.

Good thing this device isn't just for kidnappings. The implication that device is "meant" to "prevent" kidnappings, and only kidnappings, was fallacious in the first place.