Friday, November 6, 2015

IT Jargon: Big Mother


Big Mother is a slang term that refers to modern technology that parents can use to monitor their children. The range of Big Mother technology is quite large. Some examples include:

  • Geolocation
  • Cell phone spy software
  • Nanny cams
  • Purchase tracking software
  • Car chips and cameras


    Big Mother is that Orwellian vision with a parental twist. While this technology does put anxious parents at ease, it also tests boundaries beyond the parent-child relationship. One example is how geolocation data can be used to check whether another adult who is driving a child somewhere is speeding while the child is in the car. Dads seem not be interested.

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