The sinister Santa ‘spy cam’ to make your kids behave!
Surveillance society even invades Christmas with...
PARENTS have long warned their children that Father Christmas knows whether they have been naughty or nice.
And now the threat has been given a high-tech – and some say sinister – update, with what appears to be a home surveillance camera installed by an army of elves keeping a watchful eye from the North Pole.
Or at least that’s the notion behind the Elf Surveillance Dummy Security Camera, a fake but all-too-convincing gadget that mimics the type of devices found on public transport and in buildings.
The £5 toy, which is marketed as the smart way to keep kids in check, even has a flashing red light to warn misbehaving children that elves are watching their every move.
‘Official Elf Reports’ also record children’s activities and categorise them as ‘naughty or nice’. The manufacturer describes the camera as a bit of ‘light-hearted fun’, but privacy campaigners last night raised their concerns.
Renate Samson, of pressure group Big Brother Watch, accused the makers of being Orwellian. ‘Childhood is a time for being both naughty and nice, for learning about how society works, what’s right and what’s wrong. It’s not a time for thinking everything you do is going to be filmed and someone is going to punish you for it. This kind of gimmick makes light of surveillance but it’s not a joke. We should discourage children from feeling as if they’re living in some sort of panoptic state.’
Parents offered mixed reviews of the prop on website Amazon. One wrote ‘Makes life easier’, while another added: ‘It’s quite inexpensive, so you can save your money for a child psychologist a few years down the line.’
Another device on the market involves baubles that double as fake cameras, warning children: ‘Santa is watching.’
A spokesman for PMS International, which makes the elf camera, said: ‘There is no sinister intention behind the products.
‘Families who take part in the elf phenomenon enjoy this Christmas ritual enormously.’
SHOPPERS with ‘bargain fatigue’ are being blamed for lower than expected Black Friday sales – despite retailers slashing prices by up to 70 per cent.
There was only a 6 per cent rise in online purchases, below expert predictions of a double digit hike.
In-store purchases are likely to account for 21 per cent of sales, estimated consultant PwC.
A spokesman said: ‘While we might have expected older shoppers to prefer shopping in-store, even among over-65s, 60 per of their Black Friday spend is expected to be done online.’
It is estimated that Brits spent around £8 billion this weekend.
Many retailers – including Amazon, Debenhams and Currys – have extended their sales until tomorrow’s Cyber Monday event in a bid to tempt shoppers into a final splurge.
Price cuts include Amazon slashing the cost of a Kindle Paperwhite e-reader with a 6in high-resolution display to £79.99 from £109.99.
At Debenhams, a £200 discount is on offer on a Kitchen Aid mixer, down from £499 to £299, while at Currys, a 13in Apple MacBook Pro in space grey is reduced from £1,599 to £1,449.
House of Fraser has taken £100 off a Delonghi Nespresso Lattissima Touch in black, reducing the price to £179.99, while at Argos, a Dyson V6 Animal Extra vacuum cleaner is down to £199.99 from £389.99 – a saving of £190. But retail analyst Natalie Berg warned shoppers had become sceptical about so-called bargains.
She said: ‘Research from this year’s Black Friday shows around half of all deals have been cheaper at other times in the year – shoppers are becoming indifferent.
‘Shoppers can suffer from bargain fatigue – the appeal of Black Friday has been diluted because it’s no longer a one-day, in-store event.
‘You don’t need to camp out overnight to get access to the deals and they are spread out over two weeks.’
Black Friday arrived in the UK five years ago after retailers such as Amazon imported the event from the United States.
High Street stores complain it forces them to offer discounts at a time when they could normally be selling goods at full price. Most clothing retailers finished midseason sales only two weeks ago.
Experts also say that online retailers benefit more from such mass-discounting events, which have accelerated the shift away from the High Street towards online shopping.