In the summer of 2018, Lida Erasmus from South Africa endured one of the worst nightmares any mother could experience. Her teenage daughter left home one weekend with a young man and didn’t return. Her daughter’s phone was switched off and Lida was literally losing her mind searching for her daughter. At that point technology came to the rescue: when Lida bought her daughter a smartphone, she installed the Kaspersky Safe Kids app on it. Next morning the child's phone was switched on. Thanks to the app, within five minutes Lida had located her daughter on the map and drove out to pick her up.
There are already loads of products on the market that allow you to monitor your children without being around them night and day. One such example is a set of sensors you can place in a child's bedroom that will indicate whether the windows and doors in the room are closed. Baby monitors and other connected devices from the digital world make it easier to ensure that babies are never left unattended, allowing parents to keep an eye on them at all times.
The motto of the startup industry – ‘Move fast and break things’ – does not work here. First and foremost, innovative devices must go through many stages of evaluation to ensure they are safe before they can be sold. Having tested them we then select the ones that can be used for one purpose, and one purpose only, and that is the safety of children.
As a child grows and starts to explore the world, devices that track their location come into the picture. Bracelets and other wearable devices with GPS trackers can help keep them safe. For example, the Smart Baby Watch for children can be used to make calls to two telephone numbers, as well as exchange voice messages. Parents can track the location of their child via a smartphone. If there's an urgent need to make a call, parents can do so discreetly (a so-called silent call) and listen to what is happening around the child. To make them more fun for the kids, some wristbands with GPS trackers have built-in games or even Tamagotchi (as in the Doki watch). The Russian version of the smart watch called Life Button has a panic button that the child can press in case of emergency.
Recently, Cybex introduced car seats with sensors that start to beep if a child accidentally unbuckles their seatbelt or if the driver accidentally exits the vehicle, leaving the child in the car unattended. Another company, The US startup 4moms, has developed a self-installing infant car seat that uses 20 sensors to automatically adjust the car seat into the correct position before each trip.
Today’s technologies can now reduce the chance of a child drowning. For example, you can tie an elastic bandage with an Iswimband sensor onto a child’s forehead. This device transmits an alarm to a smartphone or a tablet if the child is under water for more than 30 seconds. For children over 15 years of age, there is even a ‘mobile lifeguard’ – a Vkosha bracelet with an inflatable floatation device. The bracelet is sold with a set of four cartridges containing carbon dioxide. In an emergency the wearer simply pulls a lever to inflate a bright orange floatation device that lifts the person to the surface.
A very useful app if you're looking to track the movement of your children. Kaspersky Safe Kids displays the real-time location of your child on a map. Apart from that it also allows you to set a ‘safety radius’, for example, the way home from school or around the playground. If the child strays beyond that zone, the parent will automatically receive a notification on their cell phone.
The Snuza Hero monitor attaches to a baby’s diaper and collects data and monitors the baby's breathing. If it detects that the baby has stopped breathing, the monitor vibrates giving the baby a little push to prompt it to breathe again. If there is no change within 15-20 seconds and the baby's breathing hasn't returned to normal, the monitor’s red light will start flashing and a siren will sound. Anxious parents also have an option of setting up a low sound signal so that they can hear baby’s every breath.
For teenagers, there are technological alternatives to pepper spray, such as a ring with a panic button that can connect to smartphones via Bluetooth, sending an emergency alert to the police. It is, however, much more effective to scare off assailants in the event of an attack. This can be done with the help of a small manual siren or a ‘sound grenade’, like the BASU eAlarm. This device looks like a keychain. When a pin is pulled it emits a 120-decibel alarm that is as loud as a fire truck siren at full blast. This device immediately draws attention to what is happening and is likely to deter any assailants.
Kids today are literally glued to their gadgets. The company’s global task is to teach them to use the internet securely. We develop solutions to protect kids from problems on the web; we organize a regular Safe Kids Roadshow – an educational campaign on kids’ online security; we publish books and educational flashcards.
thousand students
in 40 schools across
the globe have participated
in Safe Kids Roadshow events.
million is the number
of views of the Virus episode
in Fixiki animated series,
which was issued by Kaspersky
together with Aeroplan Production
Company and aimed to let the kids
learn more about information
security in a comprehensible
and simple manner.
is the number of times
the flashcard set has been
downloaded from the company
website since October 2017.
Today, the cards are actively
used at elementary,
secondary and high school
classes in Japan.
the company organizes
New Year and Christmas
celebrations for the employees' children.
>1,000 kids
attend children’s events organized by the company annually.
Kaspersky hosts Children's Day. This allows children a to learn more about their parents’ workplace.
is always an educational event. Every year the kids are taught something new, like robotics, science, first aid, or they take part in a nature ‘boot camp’.
A nursing room is available
during these events
so even babies and toddlers
can take part.
This is a story about a nine-year-old boy, Kasper, his friend Sky and the green bear Kuma. Kuma is a toy bear that comes to life when Kasper needs his help.
The book was first published in November 2017 in the Netherlands and has since been reprinted by different companies around the world. It is distributed free to schools and helps children aged 6-9 to safely explore the digital world.
Through the publication and distribution of the book, Kaspersky has helped parents and teachers to find the best way to educate children about potential dangers on the internet, how to deal with unpleasant online encounters and how to avoid them in future.
Actors play out different situations
from real and virtual life
to schoolchildren between the ages
of seven and 13.
The campaign was first launched
in Johannesburg and Cape Town,
and has now reached such places
as Dubai, Bahrain, Windhoek,
Walvis Bay and Swakopmund.
These performances have been held
in 40 private and public schools
in different countries, attended
by more than 30,000 schoolchildren.
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