Summer camps use facial recognition so parents can watch from home(sfgate.com)
sfgate.com
Summer camps use facial recognition so parents can watch from home
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Summer-camps-use-facial-recognition-so-parents-14291272.php
15 comments
Sorry to hear that, but gotta ask: Do you think a camera would’ve prevented the abuse? Or maybe would it have happened somewhere out of view of a camera?
Nobody can be certain that it would completely prevent something like that, and world doesn't deal with absolute. However, it would make it harder to perpetrate, make potential abuser more fearful, and, on average, would make it much less probable, this I'm sure of.
With the cost of many many people feeling observed, many parents being nudged into thinking it’s okay to observe their kids 24/7 etc.
The old discussion about security vs freedom again. And I don’t think there are easy answers to that.
The old discussion about security vs freedom again. And I don’t think there are easy answers to that.
I disagree that parents are passive objects here - it's them who are subjects. They are the camp's customers, and they make decision to choose one camp over another depending on which one has this security and which one doesn't, and they are able to communicate their opinion to the camp's administration.
It's all in the parent's hands, as it should be.
It's all in the parent's hands, as it should be.
[deleted]
Thank you so much for sharing this. As hard as it is, we all need more brave voices like this, and we as a society should be embracing those who come forward.
“When a camper isn't smiling or is on the outside of a big group shot, counselors said they know to expect a phone call from back home. Liz Young, a longtime camp director now helping oversee two camps on the coast of New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee, said she now fields as many concerned-parents calls in two hours as she used to get all month - mostly from parents asking about how their kids look on camera, or whether they're being photographed”
So they now remind the kids their parents are watching, so they’ll smile.
Time for a new era a camp movies. Not sure if it would be a comedy, black mirror or horror movie.
So they now remind the kids their parents are watching, so they’ll smile.
Time for a new era a camp movies. Not sure if it would be a comedy, black mirror or horror movie.
This is completely fucking insane. I'd like to say, "As a former camp counselor, I think this is completely fucking insane" but whatever authority I might have on the subject has nothing to do with it.
The social pressure on a fully surveilled society will be a mess.
I don’t know why people find black mirror so interesting- isn’t it just a humdrum depiction of how things are these days?
You may be more tuned in to some of the issues that it's calling attention to than the typical viewer.
As a black mirror fan I’d object to it being boring. If anything the way things are these days is boring and BM adds a bit of edge to it to bring more attention to “what if”.
[deleted]
or is on the outside of a big group shot
By definition, someone is always "on the outside".
By definition, someone is always "on the outside".
The first time I got high was when a camp counselor shared a joint with my friend and me. There were no photos, and no parents ever knew. Everything was just fine that way, too. Who knows what my parents and siblings were up to while I was gone.
It was such a relief to get away from my whole family for a week when I was a teenager.
That was in the 70s. I would have gone nuts if I'd been raised by the helicopter parents of the 90s who were always on the verge of calling social services on my wife and me because we didn't always supervise her every waking moment. Hell, sometimes we didn't know where she was when she was a teen. And the psychotic version of obsessively intrusive cyber-stalking parents that exist now makes me not want to know young parents.
It was such a relief to get away from my whole family for a week when I was a teenager.
That was in the 70s. I would have gone nuts if I'd been raised by the helicopter parents of the 90s who were always on the verge of calling social services on my wife and me because we didn't always supervise her every waking moment. Hell, sometimes we didn't know where she was when she was a teen. And the psychotic version of obsessively intrusive cyber-stalking parents that exist now makes me not want to know young parents.
I don't get it. What drives parents to this level of micro-management of their kids?
I'm a father, in my mid-40s, and my son just turned 25. So, I definitely parented though the first wave of helicopter parents. I just don't get it. Sending my son out on his bike to roam free was the best part of the day for all of us. And summer camp was a welcome break from the tedium of suburban life - for all of us. He got to run around outside without concern that we were watching; we got some time to catch up on our marriage or whatever else needed tending.
And any time we tried to force control his life, it created more problems than it solved. We always had more success just letting him do his thing and trusting that he'd mostly do the right thing (he stumbled a few times, but most of us have).
I'm a father, in my mid-40s, and my son just turned 25. So, I definitely parented though the first wave of helicopter parents. I just don't get it. Sending my son out on his bike to roam free was the best part of the day for all of us. And summer camp was a welcome break from the tedium of suburban life - for all of us. He got to run around outside without concern that we were watching; we got some time to catch up on our marriage or whatever else needed tending.
And any time we tried to force control his life, it created more problems than it solved. We always had more success just letting him do his thing and trusting that he'd mostly do the right thing (he stumbled a few times, but most of us have).
I think there always has been an over anxious section of humanity, but now they are enabled by technology and society around them to be that anxious.
I'd say they should chill out and smoke a blunt, but that would probably make them paranoid as well as anxious. What an awful way to go through life, is there nothing that can be done for them?
Anxiety & panic attacks being a common mental illness isn't a high statistic for no reason, and it tends to skew more female.
This is utterly terrifying.
Maybe the kids are used to this level of obsessive control? I’m not sure if this sounds more damaging for the kids or for the parents.
This also sounds only a _really_ small step away from just having cameras everywhere that the parents can watch 24/7.
I’d really like to hear a persuasive argument as to why this is at all reasonable.
Maybe the kids are used to this level of obsessive control? I’m not sure if this sounds more damaging for the kids or for the parents.
This also sounds only a _really_ small step away from just having cameras everywhere that the parents can watch 24/7.
I’d really like to hear a persuasive argument as to why this is at all reasonable.
This is next level helicopter parenting in action. Kids these days are twice the age of millennials when they start roaming their surrounding environment without supervision. When I grew up we had a comedy movie called the Truman Show and we were actually laughing about a similar situation. This is guaranteed to set up a generation for failure if kids are never exposed to any risk taking activities.
My mom brought up a point, that in the 50s-70s, maybe even the 80s, there was a vast informal network of housewifes and grandparents that kept watch on the kids playing outside in the neighborhood, that they felt like they could trust. Also there were not laws that made it kids had to be supervised by adults until age 12. Now CPS will be called on you if you have your kids go on the bus by themselves:
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/09/06/a-dad-in-bc-l...
In today's dual income norm where you don't know your neighbors, that doesn't exist anymore. That & the new laws creates helicopter parenting to assuage these new anxieties.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/09/06/a-dad-in-bc-l...
In today's dual income norm where you don't know your neighbors, that doesn't exist anymore. That & the new laws creates helicopter parenting to assuage these new anxieties.
I feek the lack of closeness with neighbors is key here. Having close neighbors made all the parents just take it for granted their kids are out and about in a pack somewhere with adults they know around. Cell phones made people are more connected with friends on the other side of town at the cost of their neighbors, who used to be default friends because it was just logistically easier to hang out with them than anyone else.
Humans have evolved to look for risk everywhere. Where there isn't any risk, they'll just invent risk.
Also, parents read in the newspaper every day about terrifying incidents that happen to other people. So they believe those are likely in their neighborhood. They are in the newspaper because they are rare. But people aren't very good at evaluating probabilities.
Also, parents read in the newspaper every day about terrifying incidents that happen to other people. So they believe those are likely in their neighborhood. They are in the newspaper because they are rare. But people aren't very good at evaluating probabilities.
Sounds like an administration completely out of control. This is the kind of nonsense you actually sue a government for. Is Canada providing the support for parents working full time to accommodate these kinds of demands?
> After a weeks-long investigation, the ministry concluded that children under the age of 10 cannot be left unsupervised — whether on a bus, riding bikes around the neighbourhood or walking to the corner store, he said.
It's so sad our world has never been as safe as today.
> After a weeks-long investigation, the ministry concluded that children under the age of 10 cannot be left unsupervised — whether on a bus, riding bikes around the neighbourhood or walking to the corner store, he said.
It's so sad our world has never been as safe as today.
>Sounds like an administration completely out of control.
This isn't an administration completely out of control.
This is a society completely out of control.
The administration simply reflects the prevailing social attitude, and that attitude is that we want to take away the rights of children to properly develop (and more to the point, limit the rights of parents to allow their children to develop) and hand it over to concern trolls and/or the paranoid so that they may exercise power over their neighbors under the guise of looking out for them- remember, abuse from CPS is always initiated by a "concerned citizen". Oppression, after all, is always at its worst when the oppressors act with the approval of their own conscience.
Societies typically fail to deal with this kind of person appropriately, because when risk is exposed it both presses emotional buttons and provides an easy way out (by banning the risk).
The way it's correctly dealt with is to write laws that ban society from paying that kind of Dane-geld. These laws codify things called "rights"; and their primary function is to prevent unwarranted risk aversity (be it genuine, or fake to score political points) by setting down a baseline beyond which those that spread terror are not negotiated with (that your children will be abducted unless you pay the ransom of never letting them outside, or that they'll grow up to be mass killers unless you pay the ransom of banning rock music, D&D, and video games), even if the allegations are correct (a child raised in a locked cage will by definition never be abducted).
Utah has passed such a law (I'm not sure about other places, though Red states are by current definition more likely than Blue ones to do this) explicitly codifying the right of way of minors of "sufficient age and maturity" in its state definition of "neglect" so that State power can't be abused to harass them. While it's not a permanent solution explicitly recognizing the rights of persons of sufficient age and maturity (as it could easily be changed later, and even if minors had the explicit right of way they would be unlikely to realize if it was being infringed), it's a good first step.
This isn't an administration completely out of control.
This is a society completely out of control.
The administration simply reflects the prevailing social attitude, and that attitude is that we want to take away the rights of children to properly develop (and more to the point, limit the rights of parents to allow their children to develop) and hand it over to concern trolls and/or the paranoid so that they may exercise power over their neighbors under the guise of looking out for them- remember, abuse from CPS is always initiated by a "concerned citizen". Oppression, after all, is always at its worst when the oppressors act with the approval of their own conscience.
Societies typically fail to deal with this kind of person appropriately, because when risk is exposed it both presses emotional buttons and provides an easy way out (by banning the risk).
The way it's correctly dealt with is to write laws that ban society from paying that kind of Dane-geld. These laws codify things called "rights"; and their primary function is to prevent unwarranted risk aversity (be it genuine, or fake to score political points) by setting down a baseline beyond which those that spread terror are not negotiated with (that your children will be abducted unless you pay the ransom of never letting them outside, or that they'll grow up to be mass killers unless you pay the ransom of banning rock music, D&D, and video games), even if the allegations are correct (a child raised in a locked cage will by definition never be abducted).
Utah has passed such a law (I'm not sure about other places, though Red states are by current definition more likely than Blue ones to do this) explicitly codifying the right of way of minors of "sufficient age and maturity" in its state definition of "neglect" so that State power can't be abused to harass them. While it's not a permanent solution explicitly recognizing the rights of persons of sufficient age and maturity (as it could easily be changed later, and even if minors had the explicit right of way they would be unlikely to realize if it was being infringed), it's a good first step.
Basically the expectation is you bring them to school yourself either via driving them or maybe walking them to the school bus, and then they stay at home or they are supervised by other adults in activities, the school/daycare, scheduled play dates and so on.
Kids walking over to the neighbors house 'unsupervised', playing in your private back yard and other small things isn't enforced in practice, but stuff like this is.
Kids walking over to the neighbors house 'unsupervised', playing in your private back yard and other small things isn't enforced in practice, but stuff like this is.
>I’d really like to hear a persuasive argument as to why this is at all reasonable.
Put yourself in the shoes of some jerk from a wealthy suburb. For your kids entire life they have been under the supervision of one of the following:
You
Your spouse
A babysitter hired by you
A fellow parent (e.g. soccer coach)
A teacher
Who are camps staffed primarily by? A bunch of 18 and 19yos. Sending them to a summer camp is downright terrifying. What if they drown. What if they break an arm. What if, what if, what if....
Parents need to grow a pair and let the damn kid out of their sight and under the supervision of someone whom they cannot query for information about how their kid is doing. This facial recognition BS is replacing that feedback.
Personally, I think it's all crap but I understand why some people like it.
Put yourself in the shoes of some jerk from a wealthy suburb. For your kids entire life they have been under the supervision of one of the following:
You
Your spouse
A babysitter hired by you
A fellow parent (e.g. soccer coach)
A teacher
Who are camps staffed primarily by? A bunch of 18 and 19yos. Sending them to a summer camp is downright terrifying. What if they drown. What if they break an arm. What if, what if, what if....
Parents need to grow a pair and let the damn kid out of their sight and under the supervision of someone whom they cannot query for information about how their kid is doing. This facial recognition BS is replacing that feedback.
Personally, I think it's all crap but I understand why some people like it.
Until you talk to throwaway07Ju19...
One company sells the camp facial recognition software to stream the kids and another company sells the parents emotion and danger recognition AI software to scan the video stream and signals the parents if something seems "wrong".
And yeah, nightmarish. "Welcome Panopticamp , where everyone is happy or else!"
And yeah, nightmarish. "Welcome Panopticamp , where everyone is happy or else!"
This is entirely overblown.
Several camps my kids have gone to use Bunk1 to post pictures of what the kids are up to. Sometimes there are several hundred photos (for a large camp they may have a full-time photographer who is also putting together yearbooks and social media).
The software can flag which photos are more likely to have your child in them. It saves a lot of scrolling. That is all.
“Oh look, there she is! Cool.”
There is no way I’m calling the camp unless I see blood streaming down my kids face. I have never called the camp except for medical issues.
Mostly the pictures make me jealous of all the cool activities they get to do. They give a topic I can mention in the bunk notes (instead of mailing a letter you write a message and they print it and hand it out, and your child can write a reply which gets scanned in and emailed back the next day.)
Several camps my kids have gone to use Bunk1 to post pictures of what the kids are up to. Sometimes there are several hundred photos (for a large camp they may have a full-time photographer who is also putting together yearbooks and social media).
The software can flag which photos are more likely to have your child in them. It saves a lot of scrolling. That is all.
“Oh look, there she is! Cool.”
There is no way I’m calling the camp unless I see blood streaming down my kids face. I have never called the camp except for medical issues.
Mostly the pictures make me jealous of all the cool activities they get to do. They give a topic I can mention in the bunk notes (instead of mailing a letter you write a message and they print it and hand it out, and your child can write a reply which gets scanned in and emailed back the next day.)
I well and truly hope the Gel-Mann effect applies here and this is being exaggerated or misreported.
Cause what is described here is absolutely insane.
Cause what is described here is absolutely insane.
This comes to my mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_parent
The first results of this method of parenting are comming in, and I will tell you only the most hilarious result: some guy, 25 or something, came to a job interview with his mother (and I am not joking)
The first results of this method of parenting are comming in, and I will tell you only the most hilarious result: some guy, 25 or something, came to a job interview with his mother (and I am not joking)
The media reporting about helicopter parents might be way out of proportion:
https://www.salon.com/test/2015/09/04/debunking_the_myth_of_...
https://www.salon.com/test/2015/09/04/debunking_the_myth_of_...
Maybe, but this event happened in my company. It is not from the media.
Parents: hanging out with your children is reasonably-priced and can actually be fun.
Non-parents: starting a family is fun and can actually be reasonably-priced.
Non-parents: starting a family is fun and can actually be reasonably-priced.
The parents have to set up automated cameras in their house and car and ask their employer to set some up in their workplace as well. Then let the kids get automated messages with the photos. It would only be fair.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society
This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but I really think some technologies should simply not be developed.
Like it or not, engineers have a social responsibility, and this they should be able to refuse to make certain types of products. In other fields (biology and medicine for example), there is a notion of ethics. We need that too.
Like it or not, engineers have a social responsibility, and this they should be able to refuse to make certain types of products. In other fields (biology and medicine for example), there is a notion of ethics. We need that too.
Social responsibility is great and all, until you are struggling to feed your kids. Then it goes out the window. In a country of 300 million, I'm sure someone would be willing to develop it
Show the pictures to the kids daily and let them choose which pictures get sent home, and this is a win for everyone.
Sounds like a good way to build up a large accurate database of children's faces with matching expressions.
Getting kids ready for always being under surveillance in an authoritarian society.
Obsessed parent or not, the facial recognition is a huge time saver. Some of these camps post hundreds of pictures a day.
If you asked pre-teen me how I would deal with a grown man determined to abuse me, I would have talked tough. But when that time came, I froze like a rabbit in the presence of a coiled python. Over the course of my life when other victims shared their story with me, I am always reminded how shockingly easy it is to abuse a child. For the record, one of them ended the abuse when she gathered the strength to simply whimper the word "no".
For all the confused commenters that wonder why we have this cameras-everywhere trend, it is because there are a multitude of adults like me with their secret abuse stories. There just doesn't seem to be competing ideas on how to prevent child abuse.
At the very least if you are a dad, tell your child this, "if an adult harms you, I know it will be difficult but you must tell me. I'll probably get angry at first but I promise I'll calm down and I won't do anything rash, etc.". I just assumed my dad would lose his temper and either wind up in the hospital, jail, or both. But then again given the stigma of being an abused boy I probably still wouldn't talk which appears to be the norm and why it is so widespread.