Satchels with tracking device: Invitation for child molesters?
"Stop child tracking!" ? that's what privacy advocates say. "The app that protects children on the road" ? that's what the people responsible for the project call it "protective wreaths". One thing is clear: the project polarises.
What's it about "safety wreaths"?
The idea of the makers: To increase the safety of primary school children on the way to school. Both parents should always keep an eye on their child via GPS, as well as warn motorists of approaching students. This is made possible by a direction finder in the child's knapsack.
Parents can use an app to query the location of their steppke in real time; participating motorists receive a warning signal on their smartphone as soon as they come near a child. The early alarm could avoid accidents, such as badly visible street corners.
Critics warn against data abuse
Data protectors, however, criticize the project sharply. The app does not solve the problem of the danger in the traffic, but collect only mass data of the users and pass them on servers of corporations like Google and Amazon. Also, the program seduced motorists to be careless, because they relied too much on the warning function.
Responsible for "Schutzranzen" is Coodriver GmbH, a German start-up. Cooperation partners include Volkswagen and Scout. The creators of the app reject the criticism in several statements. The city of Wolfsburg, which wanted to test the program at two primary schools, stopped the project nonetheless. You have "advised the school management and the provider to suspend the start of the project accordingly", the portal "regionalWolfsburg" quotes the city administration.
Two perspectives? two opinions
Tracking schoolchildren using a tracking transmitter? a good idea? Two of our editors have thought about that. With different results.
Pros: Not that unattractive
Tracking in a satchel sounds to me as a mother at first glance not so unattractive. Especially as a journalist, news about missing and injured children is part of my daily business. And for years.
In 2016, on average, every 19 minutes a child had an accident on the road. And every month, seven children (up to 15 years) died in a traffic accident, the ADAC states. These are also arguments that the manufacturer, Coodriver, similarly mentioned on his side.
And the hint "The Satchel app makes your child 'visible' to motorists, even when they are behind parked cars or a corner of a house." reminds me of the sad accidents in which parents have overlooked their own children in the garage or driveway. This may help to prevent such terrible accidents.
No wonder then that the idea of a tracking device on the child seems to give me more security. I am not a helicopter mom. "Lighthouse," my child says about me. On the one hand, I want to give my child the greatest possible freedom to explore his own world. On the other hand, of course I want to protect it from all dangers in the best possible way. As good as I can. And then he comes back into the game, my special reporter look at our world. Mixed with the heart of a mother. I do not want to monitor my child. I just want in case of cases, that it is found as soon as possible. That a possible accident can be prevented. That the world just gets safer for children.
The whole thing has a connotation for me but nevertheless: that strangers know by the satchel tracker, where children are, seems to me scary.
? Mom-editor Nina Gaglio says.
Cons: 'Big Brother' at elementary school age? are you crazy?!
I do not (yet) have any children? I have to say that in advance. But as an occasional mum, big sister and daily driver, I can only shake my head at the thought of the satchel monitoring. Firstly: Yes, the data is transmitted in encrypted form according to "protective satchels". But there is hardly a system that can not be cracked. The thought that a stranger hack into the program and can observe specifically when a child is where, when it strolls over a dark alley, the shortcut takes through the forest path? I'm scared. Would that really be possible? A larger invitation for pedophiles would be hard to imagine.
And: Even children have privacy! Yes, the child can, according to "safety wreaths" at the push of a button decide for themselves whether mom and dad can just query the location. But do you use them too? If, the discussion at the dinner table is programmed.
I rarely shout God knows "In the old days everything went well". But I think we do not have to be more dependent on our smartphones.After all, that would mean that parents (and children) would be "educated" to assume that they had control over everything and everywhere. Supposedly anyway. Unfortunately something can always happen. And that does not have to be the approaching car.
? says news editor Saskia Fröhlich.
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