Waking up to a media Storm

I finished my working day at 4am last night and was awakened by a media storm before 8am. Waking up to find out that NTB (Norway’s largest news bureau) has distributed Klassekampen’s (Norwegian newspaper) article about Bipper being a monitoring service to the entire country of Norway was not the desired start of the day. I get so frustrated that monitoring is the first word associated with Bipper when one of Bipper’s objectives was not to be designed as such and actually be a different alternative to all the  monitoring services that keeps popping up around the world. 

Setting limits and responsibility, not surveillance and paranoia 


Bipper’s mobile solution for families is motivated by a sense of safety, not the need for monitoring. The distinction is important!

It was by no means the desire to control and monitor my child's movements that motivated me to start Bipper. They go to and from school themselves, and are out and about all day. All three (4, 6 and 10 years) are independent and secure children that I in no way want to track or control. But I want to be present and engaged, and I think it is very reassuring now – with Bipper being used - that they can activate the safety alarm if something is wrong and that I will be both called and receive a text message with information where they are located. It also gives me a sense of security to be able to locate them when I can’t find them and are nervous. It has not happened often, but occasionally I've had my heart in my throat before getting piece of mind by using Bipper. To continuously track my kids movements is not possible with Bipper, and never will be. There are plenty of localization solutions on the market that allows both parents and jealous spouses to track their loved ones, and if anyone wants this, they would go somewhere else than to us.

I did not want to control all communications to my child either. That is not why I founded Bipper. But for me the issue was not whether or not my oldest child should have a mobile, the decision was between no mobile or a mobile with limited functionalities. I would not let her have a regular mobile. I know many other parents who are facing the same dilemma.. Do I trust my children? Definitely! Do I have faith in their surrounding world in general? No, not always. Do I believe that my children are born with a filter in the head and always make the right decisions? No. And I don’t really think any children are. My role as a mother is to be present, to be supportive and be involved. To make sure they are safe. I believe that its good for children to have guidelines, and that they are safer then. I think it's a part of parental responsibility to be in present and guide them along the way - so that they become great adults with both filters in the head and the ability to guide their children on the right path in the future. Not to be present, not setting limits and not looking after their children, I think is irresponsible! 

When I was l kid, the boundaries to the world around me and my communication with this was largely given by the world itself and “supervised” by my parents. The technical possibilities then were not like today, and communication tools (phone) were for the whole family not for individual family members. Mom and Dad had an easy job. Ensuring that limits were followed was not particularly difficult. For parents today, it is a completely different situation. It is easy to talk about limits to our children, but how can we put it into action? Without checking the history on both browsers and chat logs and check their inbox (as recommended by many, but which I definitely think is to intrude on the childrens privacy)? 



The Data Protection Agency and Bipper 


Bjorn Erik Thon, the newly appointed Director for the Norwegian Data Protection Agency, expressed a certain skepticism towards Bipper’s solution in an article in Computer World earlier this week, His skepticism is now published all over Norway based on an article printed in Klassekampen (Norwegian newspaper) today. Bipper is monitoring children, says Thon, and that is not good for the children.

For me this was very sad reading. Not because Thon believes children shouldn’t be monitored, but because he considers Bipper’s solution a monitoring service, which it’s not. It’s especially regrettable that none of the articles mention that Bipper has had an ongoing dialogue with the Data Protection Agency for some time.  Bipper has presented them with plans for the service, requested input, received feedback  and implemented changes based on this (for example, that the child will receive notification by sms when they are located. This is not required by law). Bipper has submitted the service and followed all applicable rules for this type of service and have set limits for users well within the framework of the law. 



I don’t expect the Data Protection Agency to be excited about Bipper’s location service, that is not their role. They should be critical and ensure regulatory compliance. But it is nice if the media could convey a nuanced and balanced picture in which the whole story appears. That being said, it might not create the big headlines....