By Sunity Choudhary, COO, Asti Intofech
In the growing age, children want to explore, push boundaries and make their own rules. Amidst everything, the most terrifying thought for parents is losing track of their child. The crime against children in India has risen up by 11 per cent between 2015 and 2016, as suggested by the National Crime Records Bureau data. If we go by the numbers, it’s an increase of 12,786 reported crimes against children across the country. The total number of crimes against children reported in 2016 is 106,958, while 94,172 crimes were recorded in 2015.These days; technology has been growing rapidly and provide essential solutions to almost every problem.
Parents can use technology advancement mechanism to ensure safety of their kids. While the kid commutes from school to home or home to school and is away from the required adult supervision, these devices are of great help. This also helps the parents of children with ‘special needs’, to track their children. These tracking devices also help in ensuring the safety of the kids in schools, by automating their attendance, monitoring movement inside premises, locating their school buses and its movement. Such trackers give parents peace of mind, as they can watch their kids play or go out. Few of these technologies are:
1. GPS Technology:
Global Positioning System (GPS) is one of the technologies used for keeping a track on the kids. These devices determine the location of any vehicle, person or any other asset to which it is attached. They felicitate live-tracking, help parents and school authorities to ensure safety and security of their children.GPS tracking has turned out to be a smarter solution for child safety when the kids are away from home or school; this gives a sigh of relief to parents.
2. RFID Technology:
Radio Frequency ID Technology refers to small electronic devices which consist of small chips. These chips can be pasted to regular ID cards of the kids. RFID technology can be used in buses where once the kids’ board the bus, he/ she can scan his ID card and the parents get a notification about the boarding along with time and location of boarding. Once they reach the destination, they have to punch the card again before getting off. This helps in keeping a check on whether the kid has boarded the right bus and got off at the correct destination. We use the same technology to automate attendance in schools and monitor ‘DO not enter’ areas. Near-field communication (NFC) is an alternative to RFID which is cost-effective. The only drawback with NFC is it’s shorter range-.
3. GPRS Technology:
GPRS stands for General Packet Radio Services, is a packet based wireless communication service. This technology is used to transfer data through internet in real time. GPRS Technology enables one to transfer different data types like videos, photos, boarding-deboarding information, and GPS location over wireless in real time, to all stake holders like parents or school authorities. For example- Parents can keep track of their children if they are not accompanying them in cabs like OLA and UBER,or sending them by school buses.
4. CCTV Camera:
It is very important for schools to install CCTV Cameras in their corridors and in buses, also in dark remote areas of the premises, where students are not allowed to enter. Authorized personal can monitor these cameras and make the school a safer place for children. Due to some recent cases of bullying and physical abuse in schools and school buses; Government has made it mandatory for schools to install CCTV Cameras.
There are many more benefits which parents can get with the help of such tracking devices. Parents no longer have to panic while their children are away from home or get delayed from expected time in reaching home. All these devices are capable of sending data in real time in secure way to authorized people for better monitoring and timely action. These technologies give a sense of relief to the school authorities as well as parents. At the end word of caution – even if parents use these technologies, they must always keep their eyes and ears open.
