A new Global Positioning System tracking device has just hit the market, but thankfully this Orwellian nightmare isn't compulsory garment - yet.
It is small, rechargeable, a nifty accessory to the world of gadgets, and - most poignantly of all - arguably completely immoral.
Designed solely for paranoid parents to keep a technological eye on their children, the device fits neatly into an inside jacket pocket, within what appears to young eyes to be an iPod holder - anything to make your kids think it's cool, and not a Big Brother-ish waste of time. It is a simply revolting infringement upon the rights of a child as a human being - they're not at school by 9am, the parent receives a text message; they're taking drugs at some rave in the middle of a desolate field, the parent - somehow - knows, like they normally would, only this time without the need for good old-fashioned mother's intuition. Hard, solid, technology-based evidence - that's what the 21st century is about.
The company that makes them - Blade Runner - audaciously claims that a constant tracking system helps the young person with their "independence". But since when was being indirectly controlled by satellites a pinnacle of individuality and freedom? It's not the first of its kind, but it is the first time that a manufacturer has made a claim of this magnitude.
Whilst perhaps providing “peace of mind” to parents, the veritable harness that is a GPS jacket will, I would argue, inevitably bring about bad relationship patterns between parents and their children, in an age when we're being told that the levels of communication between different age groups are dangerously low.
To be worried about the safety of your children is quite natural - but to be so obsessed that you feel the need to watch them every four seconds? Perhaps it's time to let go.
