The adventures of Gary, Nic, Ginger and Dolley as they navigate life in a crazy world. They love sports, reading bed-time stories and of course, the Hokies.
Me, Her, the Boy and a Dog by Gary Cope is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
GPS Tracking for Your Kids?
It’s a scary world out there and for parents it can be even scarier. All you have to do is watch the news about some whack job that’s kidnapped someone’s little one and, well, you know the rest. I’ve often joked about having my son fitted with a GPS tracking chip in case - God forbid - he ever went missing.
According to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC), 643,744 children under the age of 18 were reported missing in 2007. While majority were returned home without incident, the fact that just one child did not is unacceptable, especially in the eyes and hearts of the family of that child.
GPS tracking is virtually everywhere these days: in our cars, GPS navigation systems, phones and other electronic devices. If you are one of those “big brother is watching us” type of people, you are probably wary to own anything with GPS built into it. While having GPS-enabled phones and cars can be beneficial, you are also giving up quite a bit of anonymity and freedom and if you don’t think big brother is watching you, you are sorely disillusioned.
That’s right. Big brother is watching … and listening to you. And the more GPS-enabled devices you have, the greater the odds you are being monitored in some shape or form. Personally, I only have one GPS-enable device, but I only use that while traveling to places with which I am not familiar.
I’m not doing anything illegal, but having grown up in a military family and having enough friends and colleagues that have worked in the defense contracting and government, I know enough to realize that our “private” lives aren’t as private as we would like to think they are.
Regardless of the big brother factor, I have no problem planting a GPS tracking device on my child either in his coat, clothes, watch or backpack. I’d feel even better if I could have it implanted in him somewhere that could not easily be removed by bad people, but as far as I know, that is not an option at this point.
What are you thoughts? Would you (or have you) put GPS tracking on your kids? In their cell phone? Car? I’m curious what you think.
