What Constant Surveillance Is Doing to Children

Re:What Constant Surveillance Is Doing to Children by sfink on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @08:53PM (#50448904)

They are opposed to Flock, while at the same time they are constantly reporting their location to each other and monitoring where everyone they know is. Which is logically consistent: they're not ok with tracking being done to them, but they're ok with doing the tracking and opting in to being tracked.

Of course, with pervasive tracking being normalized, and the apps doing this being subject to law enforcement and the government, it kind of ends up as the same thing.

(Whether parents have access to this voluntary tracking, I don't know. My kid uses it with his friends, but I've never wanted to track him. Seems creepy and distrusting. Sure, he lies to me about some things, but I have a pretty good idea of what is and isn't a lie. Feel free to disbelieve me.)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:What Constant Surveillance Is Doing to Children by wyre on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @09:23PM (#50449081)

I don't think it i s the same thing. I don't like pervasive tracking either, but it is very different from for police to subpoena google to get my data, than it is for flock to directly give law enforcement my location.

I use Find My friends on my iphone, I trust them enough they can know my location and I trust Apple enough to carry that data (I realize this is implying "nothing to hide", but I also consent to giving Apple my location). I get that it seem creepy, but its also a cool new technology if you can get over how creepy it seems. Not trying to sell you one, but give you another perspective.

I'm not a parent, but when I was teen my parents monitored me as much as they could. Personally, I think location tracking is less of an issue than parental surveillance of internet browsing. I do think if parents are going to track their kid's location, they should let their kid track the parents, too.

[ Parent | on HN ]