Surveillance-Minded Parents Can Now Hide AirTags In Kids Shoes

This is obviously for little kids, not teenagers sneaking out.

As a parent with small children, a subtle fear of them getting lost or kidnapped is always at the back of the mind.

Seems like an ok idea until you realise you could just give them a key chain, or put it in the small pocket in their trouser if you think they'll lose it. That way you don't have to buy into a whole ecosystem of shoes with a slot that fits an airtag.

Hey Billy want to come to cool sex drug party? Aw I cant my mom will know. Oh Billy don't ya know ? You gotta rip that out and attach it underneath your school bus seat.

Joking but in all honesty kids are smart and creative. As such most will find ways around this. They'll even come up with a slang word for these like "narc shoes" or something

Wait. Parents now put airtags in kids their weed compartment?

Parents worry about their kids. All mammals I've ever heard of do this. So when you tell human parents that they can have a better chance of finding their kids if their kids are missing, injured, or abducted, that's going to appeal.

I don't believe it's about sUrVeIlLaNcE at all.

Maybe good in a country that has barily any walking or cycling infrastructure, where every idiot has a gun and where all the biggest serial killers originate from. And where recently your kid can be kidnapped by unmarked unrecognizable fake police and sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador without any legal process.
But when you live in a first world country, your 8 year old should be able to go to school by bike on his own without issues what so ever, would never be kidnapped and would be brought home by a concerned neighbor when he falls and get injured. And would never get lost. You don't need an air tag for that. I've even seen kids go to school on their own in Cambodia without issues. They have over 40 different deadly snakes including 6 types of cobras.
When you treat a kid as an irresponsible criminal and/or idiot, that's what they will become.
The problem in this thread seems to be that children are seen as one homogenous group of people between ages 0 to 17. And you can either send you 5 year old to NYC without any technology by themselves, or check your 17 year old's location 24/7. Forget about any kind of in between.
Like, of course I am "surveilling" my 3 year old, I am literally obligated to. I do this with my own eyes or leave them in the care of a capable person, although depending on the situation (relative, babysitter, daycare) it is still me who is liable when something happens.
I am happy to leave my 8 year old rumble around freely as long as they return home by a time that we agreed on. We can very well also agree on them calling if they won't make it home by the agreed time, and if they don't call or pick up their phone within an additional 30 minutes, I will check their location. This can be a known and agreed upon checking. And it is about mutual trust. I trust my kid at a certain age to be responsible and keep track of time, and be available by phone (unless otherwise agreed or if they don't have a phone to begin with), as well as be where we agreed they would be, without checking. And I hope my kid will also trust me to keep up my side of the agreement. I won't check unless it's past return time and you are not picking up your phone.
This mutual trust is important in families. You deserve privacy, even if you are a kindergartener. This privacy will expand with age. This is like hiding your locked diary or leaving an open diary on your desk. You should not feel the need to hide it because I for sure won't look at it. It is yours. Similarly, you can roam around freely even with an airtag. This thing is not for daily use.
Now, does my 17 year old need an airtag? To me they are basically an adult. Hell knows I had all the freedom in the world at that age. If they feel safer knowing I could check on them when they are on a night out, maybe we can keep a similar agreement as above. But otherwise it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.

If you need to spy on your kids to keep tabs on them, you're a shitty parent. You should be able to discuss enabling Find My (assuming they have an iPhone) on their phone and why that's required (by you) openly.

Too many inept people have children. That's a large part of why society is in such decline.

I am sure most people are considering doing this have elementary aged children. A $20 tag feels like a better option than a $1000 phone. I'd prefer putting it on a backpack than in a shoe though.
All parents spy on their children. That doesn't make you a shitty parent. What you do with that info and how you handle it does.
Hey asshole, special needs kids are big and strong and smart enough to get themselves out in the world and need ways to get to them to keep them safe. There are plenty of reasonable reasons for tracking tech for your kid that aren’t helicopter parenting.
- You don't need to be a helicopter parent to explain to your kids that you want to be able to find them if needed. And you don't need to monitor them just because that feature is enabled. A reasonable parent can require the feature be enabled and only use it when there's cause.
  I maintain that if you need to hide your tracker from your child, you suck as a parent. And if your kid has special needs that make this untenable, that's obviously different from what I originally said broadly about most parents.
Too many inept people have children.
The USA is forcing women to have kids.
- Yes, now more than ever. But inept people had children who they raised to be thoughtless party-followers rather than free-thinkers and that's why Roe v Wade was overturned.
- Truer words have never been spoken

I'm not concerned with tracking where my kids are with these, but tracking their shoes sounds kinda useful. Average daily conversation in my house:

    
"Where are you shoes?"
"I don't know?"
"You were just in the middle of putting them on!?!!"
"Yeah but... I can't find them now."
"How? You had them in your hands?!?"
"That was, um, before I got distracted."
"*sigh* Let's go try and find them."

Are your kids smoking weed?
- Nope, kids are just like this
- ADHD is a hell of a drug

I swear these are apple guerrilla marketing articles. Air tags in the shoe is so stupidly expensive for the task.

Imo it’s not that it’s expensive, it’s that the kid is going to get an alert that there’s an AirTag following them, and they’re gonna be like “wtf”. Just share your find my location via phone.

When the kids find the “hidden” compartments immediately and swap their tags around.

Parent: "Why does Billy keep going to his friend's house in the other county?"
"It says his left shoe is supposed to be here, but all I see is his right shoe! How is this possible!?"

Kids have a distinct advantage in this ongoing consumer tech war between parents and kids.

I don't use TikTok, but I'd be pretty surprised if this wasn't already starting to trend there, along with ideas for where to put the airtags to fool parents.

Maybe just... talk to your kids?

A lot of people don't know this, but you can put your weed in there.

ah yes the old "hide your weed in the back of your PS2/under your Gamecube" method.
- RIP expansion bays
I would rather not

showing my age but when I was a kid during the summer or on weekends I'd be out of the house all day and just where ever in my town. My parents didn't care as long as I was either home for dinner or by the time the street lights came on. and if I wasn't home for dinner I had to find a phone and call not because my parents would be worried but so they either wouldn't have to cook as much or set out a plate for me.

It's 10 pm, do you know where your kids are?
Glad you're still alive!

"surveillance-minded parents"... Are they trying to put a negative spin on it?

Knowing where your underage kid is is a must these days. Lots of crazy people out there.

uh, statistically there are less crazy mfs than there were 30 years ago. we just weren't hyper connected. so yes, I would hope they're putting a negative spin on it. Fuck sake, my sister wouldn't let her 16 year old boys walk to the end of the cul-de-sac for fear of them being kidnapped. This shit is so god-damned stupid.
- wtf at 16 I was doing vacation alone with my then girlfriend in another country were we travelled to by train lol
- Just because your sister is hyper vigilant, doesn't mean having the capacity to track your children is wrong. People have different lives and live in different places. Just because this tool has no value to you doesn't mean it is wrong.
- My kid is 8. I like to let him roam free in the neighborhood, but I also want to be sure I can keep track of him, or locate him if he disappears. I don’t see how this is a bad thing.
Lots of crazy people out there.
Yeah. Your surveillance-minded family members.
I think you're one of those crazy people. Honestly, no one with that level of control obsession should be allowed to have children.
- You're thinking wrong.
  You guys are confusing safety with surveillance because of the obvious clickbaity title of the article.
  Having the option to know where your children are is not the same as controlling them. Parent intent matters and any tool can be abused, which doesn't mean the tool is wrong.
These days they have phones on them. Imagine raising a kid in the 90s or earlier.
- Phones can be taken. It's less improbable to the shoes to be taken.

"Surveillance-minded" (hereafter, "Helicopter") parents were almost certainly already doing that.

It just required a sharp knife and a tube of contact adhesive previously.

I was under the impression this is the main selling point of AirTags. Is there a real market for tracking lost luggage? I see AirTags being sold in every Kid’s store around here.
- My dog has one on her collar. She got lost once, after chasing a squirrel, so it was a no brainer. The cool thing is that you can make it go off, by pressing a button, and train the dog to come to you when it chirps. I hope I never need to use it in an emergency, but it's good to know I'm prepared.
- I have one in a very well hidden pocket in my backpack. Because it’s my gig bag, and goes with me when I’m working in the field. If I were just leaving it under my desk all day, I wouldn’t bother. But since it often ends up sitting in the corner of a random room while I run around a building, it has an AirTag buried in it.

Just give them a phone. Then at least they get something they want with it, instead of ugly shoes.

Young children should absolutely not have a phone, unless I suppose it's completely locked down to chat apps and the tracking I suppose...
- My little sister has a phone I set up for her. It has no internet browser, requires permission to download apps, no voicemail, blocks unknown callers, and turns off at 9pm with the exception of contacting family or emergency services.
  Phones can be safe for kids if parent just put in the time to learn about parental safety systems and implement them.
- More and more governments issue warning about the effects of screens on baby, toddler, and child brain development. The age the Netherlands puts forward now is 14 to have a smartphone, and no screens or very limited until 3 years of age.
- Those happen to be the things a child should not be exposed to
- Learn to use the tools to protect your kids. iPhones and Android can absolutely be locked down for children. Or just get an apple watch or flip phone. All better than a fucking airtag.
  My kids got an apple watch, locked down during school hours, etc.

This reminds me of an episode of Black Mirror that I can't remember the name of.

I'm guessing Arkangel
- Yes! You’re the best!

Can you register a random AirTag?
- I'm pretty sure you can't track them through the network. You can't say "track this air tag wherever it goes".
  But you could use a device to track the signal the air tag emits as long as you're in range.
- If not, then cool, your parents can give that info to your creepy uncle Steve. He's just gonna pick you up from school one day. Better hope he doesn't bring his white van.

The peak of evolved kids shoes are those with wheels on the heels ("Heelys")

Bonus points if they had the hard plastic instep so you could grind with them like Soaps.

"Can"? Were they physically unable to before?

It is likely more that they are designed to have AirTags with special compartments.
- As if kids won't suss that out in two heartbeats.

For mine kid(if I would have them) I would tell them to have those tracks, but only with a deal to not use it against kid. Like kid skipped a school and I will can't use that track info as a proof to punish kid. So, only use it as a real safety of kid, not as spying it

That's kind of dumb.

Depends on the age. For a 3-5 year old prone to sneaking out on adventures it could be useful.
Just one problem: Mine tended to attempt their escape barefoot.
- Exactly, for toddlers/children this can prove to be useful. This is not a product for older children or even teens, like it is assumed to be.
- Put a tag on their ear, I know some biologists that can hook you up
My friend who has a non-white son is considering something like this just in case an ICE kidnapping happens.
- A bit of a cynical take, but it wouldn't surprise me if ICE started throwing away shoes and phones onto the roadside.