[Lord Dave]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/hello-barbie-goodbye-privacy-why-some-are-calling-new-doll-creepy/ar-AA9EYaC

So Barbie has gone into the Same realm as Samsung TV and micrsoft's Xbox one.
By sending voice data over the internet to a cloud server, they can do heavy voice processing without having to put in expensive hardware in the consumer devices.  Too bad it all get's recorded for analysis by the company who would want that information the most.

[Ghost Spaghetti]

Someone raised an interesting question the other day of what responsibility Mattel will have towards information of child-abuse. In the UK, at least, it's illegal to knowingly fail to report child abuse to the authorities. When a child tells Barbie about what Daddy does to her and that information goes back to Mattel's cloud computers, does it then take on the responsibility to forward that to the relevant authorities?

[rooster]

Someone raised an interesting question the other day of what responsibility Mattel will have towards information of child-abuse. In the UK, at least, it's illegal to knowingly fail to report child abuse to the authorities. When a child tells Barbie about what Daddy does to her and that information goes back to Mattel's cloud computers, does it then take on the responsibility to forward that to the relevant authorities?

Oooh, I didn't even consider that. But if they did use the recordings to inform police that would be fantastic.

[xasop]

Someone raised an interesting question the other day of what responsibility Mattel will have towards information of child-abuse. In the UK, at least, it's illegal to knowingly fail to report child abuse to the authorities. When a child tells Barbie about what Daddy does to her and that information goes back to Mattel's cloud computers, does it then take on the responsibility to forward that to the relevant authorities?

Oooh, I didn't even consider that. But if they did use the recordings to inform police that would be fantastic.

Would it, though? Suppose a child with such a doll reads a news article discussing this issue online, and later that day his/her father has to discipline the child for some reason that he/she perceives as unjust. The child retaliates by making up a story of child abuse in front of the doll, or even just embellishing his/her perception of actual events. The police are notified, and the father is charged with a crime that is difficult to defend against; by the very nature of the accusation, one would not expect there to be witnesses, and even if the child does recant the statement in court, it would be difficult to prove it was not done by coercion.

Combine this with the fact that abusive parents are unlikely to allow their children to have such dolls for this very reason, and I suspect there would be a very high false positive rate with such charges. But for the same reason that the position would be difficult to defend, it's also difficult to prove this conjecture. Essentially, they would be feeding reports of dubious accuracy to law enforcement, which (given modern social stigma surrounding child abuse) is likely to be taken very seriously.

I'm not sure I'd call that a fantastic outcome.

[Blanko]

Someone raised an interesting question the other day of what responsibility Mattel will have towards information of child-abuse. In the UK, at least, it's illegal to knowingly fail to report child abuse to the authorities. When a child tells Barbie about what Daddy does to her and that information goes back to Mattel's cloud computers, does it then take on the responsibility to forward that to the relevant authorities?

It's not knowing if nobody ever hears those recordings, since they're processed by computers. If they had that system recognize signs of child abuse and forward them, that surely would pick up a fuckton of false positives and it would be a major breach of privacy.

So no, I don't think they have that responsibility, and it's much better that way.

[rooster]

Someone raised an interesting question the other day of what responsibility Mattel will have towards information of child-abuse. In the UK, at least, it's illegal to knowingly fail to report child abuse to the authorities. When a child tells Barbie about what Daddy does to her and that information goes back to Mattel's cloud computers, does it then take on the responsibility to forward that to the relevant authorities?

Oooh, I didn't even consider that. But if they did use the recordings to inform police that would be fantastic.

Would it, though? Suppose a child with such a doll reads a news article discussing this issue online, and later that day his/her father has to discipline the child for some reason that he/she perceives as unjust. The child retaliates by making up a story of child abuse in front of the doll, or even just embellishing his/her perception of actual events. The police are notified, and the father is charged with a crime that is difficult to defend against; by the very nature of the accusation, one would not expect there to be witnesses, and even if the child does recant the statement in court, it would be difficult to prove it was not done by coercion.

Combine this with the fact that abusive parents are unlikely to allow their children to have such dolls for this very reason, and I suspect there would be a very high false positive rate with such charges. But for the same reason that the position would be difficult to defend, it's also difficult to prove this conjecture. Essentially, they would be feeding reports of dubious accuracy to law enforcement, which (given modern social stigma surrounding child abuse) is likely to be taken very seriously.

I'm not sure I'd call that a fantastic outcome.

Then maybe the child telling the doll something would not hold up in court, but what if the doll recorded the actual abuse?

[xasop]

Then maybe the child telling the doll something would not hold up in court, but what if the doll recorded the actual abuse?

It sounds from the article like the doll only transmits audio, not video. I suspect the number of cases where an audio-only recording can be unambiguously interpreted as child abuse would be vanishingly small, if it ever occurs; too liberal an interpretation will turn up many false positives, and being too conservative will miss most of the actual child abuse incidents. And to take the conjecture in my previous post further, it's unlikely that anyone aware of the doll's functionality would engage in such behaviour with the doll nearby.

If data on child abuse incidents could be usefully extracted, and if the audio evidence was strong enough to hold up in court, that would be a positive outcome (although I still think it would be outweighed by the negatives). I just don't see the doll collecting information reliably enough for that to happen.

[rooster]

Fine, your logic won me out.

But what the hell is the purpose of the doll recorded sounds at all? Kids don't need dolls to talk back - that usually creeps out children anyway.

[Rama Set]

Combine this with the fact that abusive parents are unlikely to allow their children to have such dolls for this very reason

I don't see why this has to be true.  The abuser might not be smart enough/have enough foresight to consider this.

[Blanko]

Someone raised an interesting question the other day of what responsibility Mattel will have towards information of child-abuse. In the UK, at least, it's illegal to knowingly fail to report child abuse to the authorities. When a child tells Barbie about what Daddy does to her and that information goes back to Mattel's cloud computers, does it then take on the responsibility to forward that to the relevant authorities?

Oooh, I didn't even consider that. But if they did use the recordings to inform police that would be fantastic.

Would it, though? Suppose a child with such a doll reads a news article discussing this issue online, and later that day his/her father has to discipline the child for some reason that he/she perceives as unjust. The child retaliates by making up a story of child abuse in front of the doll, or even just embellishing his/her perception of actual events. The police are notified, and the father is charged with a crime that is difficult to defend against; by the very nature of the accusation, one would not expect there to be witnesses, and even if the child does recant the statement in court, it would be difficult to prove it was not done by coercion.

Combine this with the fact that abusive parents are unlikely to allow their children to have such dolls for this very reason, and I suspect there would be a very high false positive rate with such charges. But for the same reason that the position would be difficult to defend, it's also difficult to prove this conjecture. Essentially, they would be feeding reports of dubious accuracy to law enforcement, which (given modern social stigma surrounding child abuse) is likely to be taken very seriously.

I'm not sure I'd call that a fantastic outcome.

Then maybe the child telling the doll something would not hold up in court, but what if the doll recorded the actual abuse?

Regardless of whether or not something holds up in court, any level of accusation regarding child abuse is likely to result in the accused being horribly stigmatized, even if they did nothing wrong. Regarding that subject, there's a fantastic film I talked about in the Just Watched thread called The Hunt. It's a perfect demonstration on what false accusations can do to people.

[Rushy]

Fine, your logic won me out.

But what the hell is the purpose of the doll recorded sounds at all? Kids don't need dolls to talk back - that usually creeps out children anyway.

They probably want to find out what the children are doing when they're playing with the toys (or playing with other toys) and tailor their newer toy lines accordingly.

I mean, that's dumb as fuck, but that's probably what they're doing.

[xasop]

Combine this with the fact that abusive parents are unlikely to allow their children to have such dolls for this very reason

I don't see why this has to be true.  The abuser might not be smart enough/have enough foresight to consider this.

I don't think it would be true in all cases, but I do think it would be true in enough cases to substantially increase the proportion of false positives.

[Ghost of V]

I really don't think a child's word to a barbie should be used as evidence in a legal case or as a cause to investigate someone, unless there's physical evidence supporting abuse. But even then, that's a bit too Orwellian for my tastes.

Kids can lie, and things can be misinterpreted by the listener.

[Rama Set]

I really don't think a child's word to a barbie should be used as evidence in a legal case or as a cause to investigate someone, unless there's physical evidence supporting abuse. But even then, that's a bit too Orwellian for my tastes.

Kids can lie, and things can be misinterpreted by the listener.

You would have to strike all audio recordings as inadmissible then, no?

[Ghost of V]

I really don't think a child's word to a barbie should be used as evidence in a legal case or as a cause to investigate someone, unless there's physical evidence supporting abuse. But even then, that's a bit too Orwellian for my tastes.

Kids can lie, and things can be misinterpreted by the listener.

You would have to strike all audio recordings as inadmissible then, no?

Not necessarily. If it supports already existing evidence then I don't have a problem with it, but I don't think it should be used as the sole evidence for an investigation.

[Ghost Spaghetti]

I'm not sure that it would be sole evidence, in much the same way as one call to Childline isn't enough to lock someone up, but it is used to raise questions and promt an investigation. The question isn't really whether the evidence would lead to a prosecution, but an interesting fact of the law that if you know or suspect child abuse in England and Wales but do not report it to the authorities, you can be prosecuted.

of course, if nobody actually listens to the voice recordings and doesn't find the "Please make Daddy stop." messages, then it could be a different kettle of fish. The legal precedent would be interesting, though.