Regine’s whimsical We Make Money Not Art
features a story about Lauren Scott of California, who will launch a
line of kid’s pyjamas sewn with RFID tags. The idea is that you place
RFID readers at doors and windows and if the pyjamas pass these points,
an alarm is raised.

Parents can also

sign up to access an optional SmartWear database that
contains photographs and vital information from medical needs to
handicaps the parent may wish to provide law enforcement in the event
their child is missing.

Hmmm. We’re a pretty sad society if parents feel the need to buy this
kind of thing. The mere fact that this clothing has been launched at
all, greatly exaggerates the possibilities that a kid is going to be
either abducted from their bed or will go wondering off on their own
when they’re meant to be sleeping.

The media has done a great job of scaremongering and sensationalising
child abduction in the last 10 years or so. This is despite the fact
that it remains a highly rare crime, normally committed by someone
known to the child anyway and a crime that isn’t happening any more frequently than it used to (in the UK anyway).

However, these crimes sell newspapers and increase the consumption of
all news media, so it’s hard to resist joining in with high profile
coverage.

Worse though, is when manufacturers launch products and services that
try to cynically capitalise on very natural parental fears and bully
them into products that aren’t needed or don’t solve the problem
they’re being sold to sort out. Of all missing child cases, I’m sure only a tiny
proportion (of an already tiny number) will be prevented by this
clothing.

There’s plenty of legitimate uses for RFID and I can’t help thinking
that manufacturers would be better off focusing on them, rather than
trying to scare and bully parents into spending money on something that
won’t ever be needed by the vast majority of us.