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There are no longer many smartphone applications to know and quantify one’s physical activity, sleep, eating habits, etc. But for the philosopher and bioethicist Joel Michael Reynolds, it is especially the “tracking” applications for children that pose a problem, understand, applications that allow you to follow your child’s geographic position in real time, via a GPS, but also what your child is doing on their mobile phone (applications used, calls made or received, pages viewed online, etc.).
Specializing in the ethics of emerging technologies, philosopher Joel Michael Reynolds fears that these tracking applications may transforms “cautious” parenthood into “watch” parenting, not to say “police“.
He explains why in three points.
1-Data sold to other companies
The first point is not linked to the ethics between parent and child per se, but to the data collected by these tracking applications. Because it would be naive to think that the manufacturer behind the application does not care. “To get the most out of the data, these apps work around the clock to keep them usable through notifications, pushes, and other design techniques.”, Explains the specialist. “This data is then often sold to other companies, including advertising agencies and political campaign companies. The main goal of these devices is not the well-being of people, but the profit that their data can generate.”, He emphasizes.
Also, when parents track their children through such apps, they mainly help companies maximize their profit, and risk putting their child at risk if the information collected by these applications falls into the wrong hands.
2- A risk of private data leakage
We unfortunately think about what would happen if a person with pedophile inclinations accessed the daily walk of a child … And this is what worries the specialist, in his second point. He indicates that a study carried out in 2014 by the security company Symantec found that even devices that did not seem traceable could still be tracked wirelessly, due to insufficient privacy features. “Information about the whereabouts of people can reveal valuable information about them. In the case of children, their tracking data could very easily be used by someone else”, alerte Joel Michael Reynolds.
3- An app that can break the relationship of trust
Trust is at the heart of close relationships, especially healthy relationships between parents and children. It is even necessary to develop a feeling of security, underlines the specialist. Also, using an application to track your child can harm the parent-child trust relationship, and even become counterproductive by pushing the child to rebel and overcome prohibitions.
That said, the philosopher admits that there are exceptions: “if a parent has good reason to suspect that their child is suicidal, involved in violent extremism or in other activities that threaten their life or that of others, the best solution is to break their trust, to undermine their privacy and supervision of the child. But these exceptions are not the rule. Think twice before following your kids”, Concluded Joel Michael Reynolds.
Source : The Conversation
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