The Pigeon Patent: Family Data Security
Peace of mind is priceless.
By JON MARSON
Last year, there were over 424,000 children reported missing. That means thousands of incidences of terrified parents, neighbors, and friends frantic enough about a child’s whereabouts to have filed a case. And while those nearly half-million incidences are the ones on record, imagine how many millions more unreported times a parent lost their children for three, five, fifteen minutes or more.
That heart-stopping moment where you don’t know where your child has gone is unfortunately familiar territory to every parent.
Lots of companies and organizations are at work trying to keep kids safe. We have reactionary measures in place, such as Amber Alerts, to notify the public when a child officially goes missing, but those are often triggered after several hours or days.
What about those early moments when a child is unaccounted for and a parent or family member is feeling a rising panic?
After losing track of my son at a local play place for a terrifying 15 minutes, I was inspired to research what is available to address this issue. I discovered options such as Jiobit, AngelSense, the Gizmo watch, and others. Ultimately, I dismissed them because of the size of the device, their reliance on cell service and GPS, and/or the required battery life.
Thinking back on moments where I have momentarily lost track of my child, it has always been in public places such as parks, grocery stores, and shopping centers. These are zones that are already set up with wireless equipment, with managers and business owners who are no more interested in having your child go missing on their grounds than you are.
What if we could work together by tapping into systems already in place to help locate children? This would cut the need for cell towers and GPS, which then reduces the size, battery requirements, and overall cost of the device a kid needs to wear.
A great concept, with one hiccup: nobody wants their child’s location information to be in the hands of a business owner or park manager. Who exactly owns a given location’s information?
Turns out, this was a new question, the answer to which is the Pigeon Network’s patent: “Real Time System Location.” The patent was developed to keep the location information of family members protected. This means parents and guardians can know where kids might be, but nobody else can access or use that information. The end result is a tool families can trust to keep kids safe.
This patented technology has been applied to create the safest and most secure check-in and check-out systems in the world at Nike summer camps. At pick-up, kids are checked out with designated adults, and guardians receive text notifications. This is a game changer for carpooling parents and working families. Parents can have peace of mind knowing where their child is, but bobody is accessing, buying, or selling their family data.
Of course, we know kids won’t wear a device just for parents to be able to locate them. Kids are kids and want to have fun; they wear Pigeon bands because they get to track steps, work towards goals, and engage in friendly competitions. At our most recent camps, 100% of kids said they love Pigeon, and they wore them as intended without any nagging or reminders. Even with the teenage campers!
