Is it wrong for a couple to secretly monitor the behavior of their baby’s nanny
Monitoring a nanny / baby’s caretaker secretly has been a controversial topic for quite a long time. Some call it to be a right decision while pointing towards the cases of children’s being abused by their nanny during absence of their parents whereas others put forward their moral and ethical values and the right of privacy. On a survey done on 4000 moms by Parenting magazine and America Online, 82% of them would secretly record the caretaker either out of suspicion of whether the kid is getting proper treatment or not, or to protect their caregivers from false accusations of abuse. The monitoration of nanny’s has gone so far as there are companies that solely sell cams called nanny-cams.
While there is an continuous discussion over these topics, there are many who argue about the right to use hidden cameras in home to monitor nanny. Alec Farr, an attorney at D.C. says,” It’s your home. It’s her workplace you are providing to her. She has no reasonable expectation of privacy in your home” On the other hand, the dean of Chicago-Kent College of law, Harold J. Kent says, “It strikes me as unethical. I would suggest that people put the shoe on the other foot. What if a camera were focused on you at work? What would your reaction be if your boss decided to record phone conversations or monitor e-mail? Wouldn’t you want to know about it ahead of time?”
While considering the past events, there have been multiple registered cases of parents finding out their infants getting abused, slapped, and kicked by nanny through hidden cams. A recent event in Grasmere England, where a couple found their 53 year old nanny slapping and shaking their 5 month kid through a nanny-cam, and they uploaded the video to YouTube where it went viral and was taken down later for breaking YouTube rules regarding violent actions. A similar incident happened in India, when a rapper shared her story in a rap competition where she was abused by her nanny during childhood days. She mentioned how she was beaten and threatened by her caretaker to not tell anything to her parents, and her caretaker used to bring her partner while her parents would not be home and she was locked in a single room during the day. While the covid pandemic caused lockdown, the cases of child abuse done by non-family members had declined for the first time in decades as per office for domestic abuse cases, Canada.
On the other hand side, hundreds of videos that clearly abuse the right of privacy of nanny’s are just a search away on internet. While just monitoring nanny’s in living room wasn’t enough, the videos of caretakers changing clothes and bathrooms videos are even found to be recorded which are later used for blackmailing them. Use of nanny cams have also been causes of rise of distrust which later results in decrement of nanny’s quality of work. “Whether or not you choose to use a nanny cam is up to you, but both you and your nanny need to be comfortable with your decision for the relationship to work,” advises Lynn Perkins, CEO of Urban Sitter.
While looking from legal perspective in Nepal, As per Privacy Act of 2018, sector 19(3), “Except for the consent given by the concerned person or order issued, under law, by authorized official, no one shall listen to any dialogue or talks held between two or more than two persons through electronic means, or mark or record the sound of such talks by making use of any mechanical device”. Furthermore, there are multiple mentions in constitution of Nepal regarding right to privacy where not getting consent from someone that they are being recorded is illegal by law and the parents who use such monitoring system can be subjects of punishments by law.
As a whole, while looking from parent’s perspective it is alright to monitor the behavior of nanny secretly for the sake of their children but by law and ethics, this might not be the best option out there. As per an utilitarian point of view, this action can only be justified if there really was cases of abuse going on the baby can be saved from nanny otherwise it would be deemed to be not alright. Similarly from Kantian point of view, as long as it’s done for the sake of baby the actions can be justified. Finally, it can be said that monitoring behavior of nanny secretly can be justified and be accepted to an extent but parents should also use other methods like, coming back home early without informing, checking how the baby acts with nanny on your day off, asking neighbors to check up on nanny while you are out and so on.
