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 • 9 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.

Not Surprised One Bit • August 26, 2026 2:42 PM

…and just as some “inventions” should be “un-invented” – the “humans” behind those “inventions” should also be unl1v3d as they are threat to decency, privacy, and only a complete 33d107 will be against changing the “limitless opportunities” capitalism and this is just a tiny example of where it leads….
“But regulations are no good for business” – and 1mb3c1ll3s are not good for any of us. No political system is good forever. It’s all about loopholes, just like in CyberSec – too many holes/loopholes circumvent and compromise the integrity of any system and those have to be patched regularly and sometimes even the foundations, from ground up, must be changed. Just about everything seems to have evolved with time except the $700p1d two-party system in the USA where “if you’re not with us, then you’re against us” applies and what’s sickening is that even if something/anything is good for the entire country, the next administration will hurry up and UNDO it because “it cannot be any good for it was done by “them”” …and round and round we go for 250 years.
The hamster inside a wheel. You can’t fix $700p1d.
The eff’n partyline(r)s = the insanity.

Obamacare no good – just because it’s called that or because a liberal created it? Probably both. If it benefits you – who cares?
Gasoline FIVE BUCKS – “go 0rang3 – who cares?”

The “project” and the “mission” are not su1c1dal – they’re much worse than that. With su1c1de you’re only end1ng your l1fe, but with this, you’re making everyone, literally the whole world miserable.
There’s no difference, left or right, same p00p.

Spyware for Babies

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