A coalition of more than 70 health professionals has issued a stark warning to parents, urging them to halt the digital surveillance of their children through phone tracking and devices like AirTags. The group, comprising psychologists, doctors, and nurses, states this monitoring is driving a "deeply concerning" increase in anxiety among young people.
The Invisible Umbilical Cord: Experts Sound the Alarm
The campaigners argue that by constantly watching a child's every move, parents are implicitly telling them the world is unsafe. This "invisible umbilical cord," as they describe it, prevents children from learning vital life skills and developing the autonomy needed to navigate the real world. Clare Fernyhough, co-founder of the campaign group Generation Focus, emphasises that while the desire to keep children safe is natural, "there is no evidence that tracking makes them any safer."
A Mother's Perspective: From AirTag Panic to 'Dumbphone' Trust
Journalist Polly Hudson shares her personal experience, aligning with the experts' concerns. She recalls a fraught school trip to Lille when, succumbing to peer pressure from other mothers, she placed an AirTag in her son's backpack. Watching his dot stall at St Pancras station induced an irrational panic, a experience she describes as self-inflicted torture. "Technology is great, until it isn't," she notes, highlighting the maddening ambiguity of tracking data.
Now her son is 11 and starting secondary school, he travels alone with a basic 'dumbphone' for emergencies. When she asked if he'd mind being tracked, his simple logic was undeniable: "If you want to know where I am, you can just ring me." Hudson finds herself in a minority among her peers, who often track not only their children but their partners too—a practice she views as a violation of trust that enforces a relentless, unnecessary level of honesty.
The Wider Culture of Surveillance: From Partners to Pets
Hudson extends the argument to partner tracking, which she equates to snooping. "You wouldn't physically follow your kids around, sidle up to them behind a newspaper with eye-holes cut out," she writes, pointing out that much online behaviour would be unthinkable in real life. She believes teenagers needing space to be less than entirely honest is a normal rite of passage. The health professionals' warning, she hopes, will encourage more parents to "make the snip" on this digital tether and grant their children the freedom to grow.
