In the wake of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, every type
of child monitoring device is in demand
If your child could wear an implant – a microchip that could tell a computer
where he or she was at any time to within a few metres – would you buy it? After
the horrific snatch of three-year-old Madeleine McCann from her bed in Portugal, the
answer from many parents seems to be “yes”.
Professor Kevin Warwick, who developed the technology that made it possible for
the first child in Britain
to volunteer to be “chipped” in 2002 – after the murders of Holly Wells and
Jessica Chapman – has been bombarded with e-mails over the past few days from
parents desperate to keep tabs on their children. As we talk, another e-mail
drops into his inbox from a mother of two young children who says that she is
deeply anxious about Madeleine’s disappearance and wants to know more about the
chip technology.
It works, in theory, by sending a signal via a mobile-phone network to a
computer that can identify the child’s location on an electronic map.
But there was the concern at the time over the ethics of tagging our children’s
bodies – some groups, including Barnardo’s and Kidscape as well as sections of
the media, said that it was a neurotic overreaction that would not benefit
children in the long run. So Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at Reading University, did not continue to develop
the project nationally. “It caused such a backlash that we had to step back,” he
says. “There were ethical concerns, and as a scientist you have to listen.” But
he adds that the point about chipping is not that you would use it to track your
children 24 hours a day – only in a worst-case scenario. “You would hope that it
never gets used,” he says.
There are, however, many other child-tracking devices on the market that will
almost certainly have a surge in sales over the next few weeks. They range from
pay-as-you-go tracking services that follow the SIM card in your child’s mobile
phone to electronic wristbands and specially tagged pyjamas. Some companies have
shied away from such gadgets, fearing legal actions from parents should they
fail for any reason, but others believe that the gadgets are destined to become
part of normal parenting.
A Lancashire company, Connect Software, recently launched Toddler Tag, a
child-safety monitoring system in which a tag smaller than a domino, which can
take the form of a badge or bracelet or may be sewn into clothing, is allocated
to each child.
The active Radio Frequency Identification tags work in conjunction with a reader
to monitor child movement, raising the alarm when the child moves beyond a
certain range. A typical package costs between £500 and £1,000. Chris Reid, the
company’s commercial director, says that several readers could be used by a
parent to create a “virtual ringfence” that triggers an alarm if the child goes
beyond the boundary or towards potential hotspots, such as kitchens or
stairways. The company has also designed toddler “Smartwear” – bibs, T-shirts,
dungarees, hats and jackets – which comes ready-tagged and, says Reid, may be
useful not only to nurseries but to give parents an “electronic pair of eyes”
when taking children to theme parks or on holiday.
Globalpoint Technologies, based in Newcastle, offers a “personal companion” that
uses a combination of mobile phone and GPS technology to enable you to track
your child by computer to within a few metres (cost: £400-£500). It picks up
locator signals from satellites and sends them as a text message or via the
mobile-elephone network to a website, and is based on technology developed by
the Ministry of Defence. It is currently used by companies such as the Royal
Mail to track mailbags.
Ian Rycroft, a company spokesman, says that it is lightweight, about the size of
a small Nokia phone and can be placed unobtrusively in a shirt pocket, jacket or
satchel or worn as a necklace or on a wristband. He believes that the market for
the devices will expand significantly.
For older children there are established products such as Kids OK mobile phone
tracking, i-Kids and Teddy-fone – a phone with a parent-activated child-monitor
option that enables parents to listen in to what is happening around their
child, an SOS button and a child-tracking service.
The drawback with all these products, of course, is that an abductor could
quickly dispose of mobile phones, satchels, clothing or wristbands. Wherify, an
American company, offers a GPS locator watch that it claims is lockable and
tamper-proof and may act as a visible deterrent (it works only in America).
However, some parents may be uncomfortable about a highly visible device that an
abductor would be desperate to remove.
The question that must also be asked is: should we be tagging and monitoring our
children to such an extent? Is there a danger that we may lose perspective and
fill our children with suspicion and fear? Indeed, could we become overreliant
on technology and consequently more blasé about basic supervision? Michelle
Elliot, director of the child protection charity Kidscape, says that she opposes
the idea of micro-chipimplants but understands why many parents want to use
phone-tracking devices or wristbands.
She worries, however, that such devices might hamper children’s development of a
sense of independence. “It doesn’t teach them what to do in a problem situation
– eg, if you are lost, go into a shop”, she says. “Having children relying on a
parent getting to them and finding them doesn’t encourage independence.” Of
implants, she says: “We don’t know what the physiological effects – and a child
isn’t giving informed consent to what is a minor operation on their body.”
But when children are abducted from bed and even from the bathtub (as a girl in
the North East was recently), a nonremovable permanent chip is something that
some parents would welcome, regardless of the ethics.
“We have 11 million children in the UK,” says Elliot. “For the past 25
years between five and seven children have been abducted and killed by a
stranger each year, and that has not changed.
“Are we becoming paranoid to the point where we give children the message that
life is so dangerous that they have to be tagged? There is no guarantee of your
child’s safety. But the chances [of something like this happening] are so remote
that you have to think about the message you’re giving them.”
But Professor Warwick says that if there was sufficient demand from the public
and the initiative was backed by child-safety groups, it would not be difficult
to make chip implants – about an inch long – available nationally in a
relatively short period of time.
He says that further work may be needed to determine how best to recharge the
device but, because it would be in “sleep mode”, it would need only very low
power. “It might be that once a year the child has to hold his arm up to a
charger,” he says.
He can see no serious health implications: the chip would housed be in a
silicone capsule and it would be little different from having a cochlear
implant.
And what of Danielle Duval, who, five years ago, at the age of 11, volunteered –
amid huge media coverage and with the consent of her parents – to become the
first implant “guinea pig”?
At the family home in Reading,
Danielle’s mother Wendy said that she did not want to comment on the issue in
relation to Madeleine McCann. Her daughter had eventually backed out of the
scheme because of intense media interest and had never had the implant fitted.
