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Now, I absultely understand the instinct that would make a parent want to be able to monitor their child in this way. But I dont think it does what they think it does. There is always an area off camera or a blind spot. Plus they cannot be watching all the time. As such, I am not sure what is to be gained aside from just the joy of seeing your baby throughout the day. I can however think of quite a few downsides.
Luckily in your case, sloum, the surveillance infrastructure at your daughter's preschool does not require you to download an app, make an account, identify yourself and your daughter, etc. As you mentioned, however, we cannot predict how that data will be used (not to mention whether or not WatchMeGrow will prove to be a responsible steward of that data). I wonder what the point of asking for consent is if the protocol is to activate the system regardless of whether consent is given. It's understandable that the faculty is wary of being under surveillance---it undermines the premise of trust in their role as caregivers. The sense of safety surveillance provides is superficial, because, like you said, there will always be blindspots. What does it really achieve?
Our daugher goes to a cooperative preschool that does not use security cameras of any sort. What is interesting about that, is that in order to operate a preschool without video surveillance, all parents must sign a waiver. It is the norm to have cameras EVERYWHERE in Korea, and so consent is required to opt-out! The reasoning behind this school's choice is that it does not make the children any safer, and it is contradictory to the premise of a "community" or "cooperative" preschool. Which is good. I thought it was odd, though, that their anti-surveillance stance was devoid of any concern for data collection. Schools do not typically implement their own surveillance infrastructure anymore. It is all installed and maintained remotely by some third-party (yet we still call it CCTV). It requires that you entrust that sensitive stream of information to some corporate entitity with limited liability. That our trust in teachers (who care for our kids daily) is displaced by a contractual agreement is ironic to say the least.
Our school does not use cameras, but it is not free of surveillance infrastructure. There are two peepholes: 1) an automated roll-call system 2) and an air quality measurement/reporting service. Recently, the Korean government began requiring that schools use some sort of digital roll-call system in order to be eligible for funding that is received so long as an attendance quota is met. The whole idea is ridiculous.
First, the entire premise of this scheme is that somehow digitizing the reporting of attendance statistics will make things more transparent, fair, and efficient. The absurdity is that there is no way to verify that the attendance information is accurate--or that it isn't fraudulent! Parents use an RFID-ready card to check their kids in and check them out when they leave. This data is handled by a private contractor (of the school's choice), who supplies it to the central government for review. But there's nothing stopping a school or parents from simply checking kids in even when they are not there. It's the same self-reporting mechanism this system vaguely attempts to rectify. Not to mention that the system malfunctions, or that sometimes parents forget to check kids in, so when they get checked out at night it appears that they were at school all through the night. Of course, those sorts of problems can be ironed out, but the basic premise of the system is baseless.
What really bothered me about this check-in system is that you have to make an account, which can only be achieved by downloading their stupid app. I was a little pissed off that we had to suddenly sign-up for this service in the first place, but the company itself turned out to be a huge joke. The government works with private contractors to implement this system, so schools have a choice in who they work with. The problem is, the contractors themselves have scrambled to put together these barely functional systems to meet deadlines and satisfy their contracts. So when we went to download this damn app, it simply didn't work. There's no way to sign-up through a website or anything. No alternatives. Eventually, we got it working by using someone else's phone to start an account. But the kicker is that these private contractors are making money off of the data they collect from users who are obligated to use the service! In order for my daugher to attend preschool, not only does she have to forfeit some freedoms and submit to a minimum of third-party surveillance, but we must (at least passively) consent to profiling (for "marketing" purposes in neo-liberalese). The irony here too is so absurd, it is almost depressing: In order to go to school and get an education, you have to allow some thrid-parties to profile you to the end of knowing, predicting, and potentially modifying your behavior (again, for "marketing" purposes), effectively subverting the very purpose of a liberal education. It's a minimal datum to provide each day, just checking-in, but being able to profile you by associating you with your other digital activity and the activies of others you interact with amounts to a stinking heap of data. What makes this all more gruesome is that in Korea, anonymity does not exist (on Korean platforms). Any online service in Korea requires that you associate it with your identity using the centralzed ID verification service. Yay...
The other peephole I mentioned is a service provided through a Korean conglomerate that provides real-time updates about the air quality inside the school itself. There are little sensors installed in each room that represent the air quality changes through changes in color. Parents can install an app to see what the air is like at their kid's school (as if that's really a necessity). This service is absolutely free, and the other parents were really quick to hop on board to get what was being handed out. The company itself provides ABSOLUTLEY NO information about the collection of data---or really any concrete information about the terms of use. The device reports air quality data, so disclosure of the terms of data colletion and use is not required. The app, however, is another story. I did not bother to install it, but it's easy to guess how this "free" service makes easy, free money off of the profiling data it is able to collect from parents who install the app and allow it to snoop on them.
It's especially disheartening, because in Korea the public is relatively ambivalent about surveillance. No one expects privacy in the first place, and admittedly, it is very hard to achieve no matter where you are. The issue is not privacy per se, but rather that people are not aware of the nature of the problem, and will continue to willingly submit themselves to surveillance for the sake of something as cheap as convenience.
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