Unbound Edition - Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

As if wearing a plaid skirt to parochial school wasn’t horrible enough. Now, the English company Trutex and Japanese company Ogo-Sangyo are developing school uniforms with installed GPS navigation systems that allow parents and education administrators to literally track children with computer software. These GPS devices already are a feature for children and teenagers' cell phones. Even Disney is jumping on that bandwagon!

“Guardian Angel Phones” are already wildly available online and GPS devices are consistently advertised for the newest cell phone technologies. Parents may check their child’s location and even vehicle speed on their computer screen. Gone are the days of sneaking off to a boy’s house and driving home fifteen miles over the speed limit to make it home by 11 p.m. curfew. Guardian Angel Tech’s website boasts a “Right to Know. The Power to Protect. The Knowledge to Prevent.” as an appeal to parents.

Personally, the thought of finally getting my own car and having the freedom to go where I chose was a major milestone in my life. I was responsible, maybe a tad too fast of a driver, but obeying of traffic laws. The thought of my parents tracking my every move makes me cringe. Really Dad, nothing better to do on Friday then watch my car move around an interactive map on our home computer?

But why stop at the car, why not track every move with your children’s uniform? Face it, he already despises you for wearing scratchy polyester all while his neighborhood friend, and public school student, wears jeans every day. Schools say the uniforms are a “safety” feature for tracking children but, let’s be honest, parents will play with the software just to see how effective it works.

Is it just me? Is this parental protection of the most extreme kind? At what point does a parent need to give up control of their not-so-little ones? If you’re still convinced your child needs one, here’s a selection of the most popular GPS phones! Have fun, you terrorizing parent.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on the Kevlar reinforced uniforms to decrease the number of school knife attacks.

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written by older&wiser, February 26, 2008 10:25 AM

This is creepy and sad. If my parents would have been able to keep such close tabs on me, I wouldn't have had nearly as many life-enriching adventures - both good and bad. Learning from your mistakes and youthful ignorance is all part of growing up.

too much, even for me
written by Stalky McStalker, February 26, 2008 11:42 AM

How do I worry about this? Let me count the ways. Since when are children like parolees who have to be tracked at all times? Just because the technology exists doesn't mean we have to use it. And I worry that parents will take advantage of it, just because they can. God forbid a teenager drive off of the "approved" Saturday night path of going from the movie to the mall to a friend's house, thereby setting off a series of alarms that have the SWAT team dropping down to ferry the deviant back to her house.