Spyware for Babies

The New York Times has a long article (alt link) on surveillance systems aimed at babies. They are increasingly using AI.

Nanit and its rivals want to own 24/7 health tracking for the sub-four-foot set. And their already astonishing levels of baby data collection are just the beginning. Nanit recently raised $50 million from investors to expand its use of A.I. and use its camera to track speech and language development, motor skills and more, while extending its presence in children’s bedrooms into early adolescence.

Tags: AI, children, healthcare, privacy, spyware, surveillance

Posted on August 26, 2026 at 8:05 AM • 10 Comments

Comments

- • August 26, 2026 8:37 AM

This is sick beyond belief,

“while extending its presence in children’s bedrooms into early adolescence.”

In many parts of the world such “surveillance” would be regarded as chld prn and would be a “no defence possible” crime to create, store, send, or receive (even if you did not solicit it in any way).

Rontea • August 26, 2026 9:13 AM

Fascinating and a little unsettling. The progression from a simple baby monitor to a full-scale analytics and health tracking platform feels like a case study in how technology creeps into daily life. The blend of reassurance and surveillance is palpable—parents gain peace of mind but trade it for a permanent data footprint of their kids’ earliest moments. The idea that our children could one day look back at their own sleep logs or cough recordings is equal parts sci-fi and inevitable. This is a perfect example of convenience, commercialization, and cultural obsession with quantified life intersecting—an Eye of Sauron that makes you smile while it watches.

Snarki, child of Loki • August 26, 2026 9:43 AM

What, they’re not ‘chipping’ the kids, with ubiquitous chip-monitors?

Maybe that’s the NEXT step for monitizing parental anxiety/government overreach.

bluehitchiker • August 26, 2026 9:50 AM

I felt an implicit threat in Nanit’s parenthetical assurance “(Nanit says that its data is secure and is never sold or used for marketing.)”. The threat being that this assurance is guaranteed as long as new parents opt to purchase subscriptions and advanced hardware, they won’t need to monetize the petabytes of data they collected from these children. However, if us wet blankets get too grumpy about privacy concerns, and revenue slumps… well, then they would be fools not to monetize their most valuable asset! In fact they have an obligation to shareholders to do just that, and the TOS said it could be modified at any time.

Neutrino • August 26, 2026 11:24 AM

One could easily imagine frantic, borderline hysterical, discussions on Facebook or other media. New, sleep-deprived parents getting whipped into a frenzy about the best for little Snookums. How will they ever face their fellow playgroup parents knowing that they haven’t kept up?
Innit amazing that generations managed to survive, even thrive, without such intrusions!

DBA • August 26, 2026 11:43 AM

@Bluehitchhiker:

And bankrupt airlines will never sell all their data to Google….

Jake Brodsky • August 26, 2026 12:03 PM

The old dictum from Dr. Benjamin Spock that your intuition is a good gauge of what is going on with your child is being replaced with an AI that “knows better.” There will be parents, particularly nervous first time parents, who will want all the data that an AI can present to them on their child’s development.

I feel that someone should be obligated to warn these parents that this information may be used against them. All it takes is one subpoena and suddenly what you thought was the privacy of your own home is now fodder for a court to deliberate.

I don’t have words I care to share here on what I think of this “service.”

lurker • August 26, 2026 2:34 PM

It’s odd how this problem afflicts the “civilized” world. I suspect there are no electronic baby monitors in Ayacucho or Zomba, and yet Nanit and friends would like to bring those innocents down to our level of parental paranoia.

KC • August 26, 2026 11:44 PM

The book ‘Human Raised’ by Dana Suskind, MD

https://humanraised.org/about-the-book/

… looks like a great read for parents who are raising and caring for children in the age of AI.

She talks about Nanit in her book. And parenting. And babies.

She’s having many engaging conversations.
https://x.com/drdanasuskind/status/2076757827138302003

For Profit • August 27, 2026 9:52 AM

Society has gotten worse, it’s now surveillance literally cradle to grave.
Personal data is commercialized in the USA to an extent that the EU would never allow under their GDPR.
KC, thanks for sharing https://humanraised.org/about-the-book/

Spyware for Babies

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