Perhaps the most effective way to watch the child-watchers is by having one or more hidden cameras installed in the vehicle that the sitter or nanny uses to transport your children. Not only can you follow where they are actually going, but the tight, stressful environment of the car may reveal most clearly the true character of your employee. How to they react to heavy traffic, to aggressive drivers, whether they are aggressive drivers themselves, do they talk on the phone while driving, and how they react to crying children while going down the road can all be telling indicators of how they deal with similar stresses outside the car. 

If the problem isn’t trust of character, but just a need for hidden cameras on a low budget, consider installing some motion-activated software on your trusty laptop. Most laptops nowadays come equipped with a small unobtrusive “webcam” on the screen, and laptops are so common that many people virtually disregard their presence. Configure your software correctly, and your computer can capture everything that happens around it — or even stream it in real-time to your office or phone.

While hopefully the use of cameras is simply cautious, sometimes you know something is happening and simply need to gather hard evidence. This is where another use of microscopic hidden cameras can come into play: nestled inside of what seems to be ordinary ballpoint pens. The pen can snuggle in the pocket of your dress shirt, unnoticed by all, and yet record everything you see.

The field of cameras has grown so large in recent years that you can find one to suit nearly any purpose, and do so with discretion and affordability. Cameras are readily available for nearly every situation which a person or family may envision or need.

It can be combined with memory storage to collect location data at predetermined times. Or it can be combined with radio technology to transmit the data as needed. Since it’s easily available to the public, it’s being used by both businesses and private individuals.

For anyone who wants to keep tabs on the location of a family member, a gps tracker is invaluable. A common use is to place a gps tracking device in a vehicle being used by teenage children. Or directly on the child. It can let the parents know the whereabouts of the child. It can even be used to determine if the child was driving too fast. It just requires comparing the amount of time it took to go from one location to the next.

The compact size of a gps tracker allows it to be used in more clandestine ways, such as snooping on the travels of a spouse who’s suspected of cheating. Employers can put it to use in a similar manner with regards to employees. Their locations can be monitored with gps tracking when they’re using a company vehicle.

It’s usefulness has even been harnessed to help elderly individuals with mental or physical limitations regain some independence. With a gps tracker they won’t need the constant supervision that would otherwise be required. The ability of gps tracking devices to transmit location data has been applied to beloved pets, too. Some people make use of it to keep the family pet from becoming lost or stolen.

It’s even possible to put this power to work with items of value in the home. If anything from an expensive coin collection to an automobile were stolen, one of these devices could show its location.

There’s even been a use for them in sporting events. In contests where the participants follow long-distance courses, knowing their positions along the route can discourage cheating. It can also alert supervisors if a contestant is injured and not moving. These uses show how versatile this technology is. Other clever uses are sure to come in the future.

In this technological/information age most people desire to be in the ‘know’ especially when it comes to their families and personal lives. It used to be that securing glowing references or letters of recommendations were sufficient but nowadays most people feel even those pieces of information are not good enough and with the accessibility and proliferation in sales of microscopic cameras a lot of people are turning to that technology to see what a person is really like when you are not watching. 

Take for example, nanny cams. The purpose of nanny cams are to catch home care givers engaging in illicit behaviors, whether it be abuse, neglect, or in some cases theft of personal items. We have all seen news reports of families who have employed a home care giver and for whatever reason that person aroused their suspicions but had nothing to prove their employee was culpable of any wrong doing, that is until a few tech savvy companies started marketing these tiny, nondescript cameras in regular household items like teddy bears, a tissue box, a potted plant, even wall clocks.

Parents of small children or adult children of an elderly parents could watch the recorded tape later to either confirm or deny those suspicions. Again, technology is so ever-changing and because some parents may need to intercept any abusive behavior before it gets out of hand some hidden camera companies offer live, streaming feeds so that when you log into the site a customer can see what is going on in their home in real time. This is why hidden cameras are so effective because you do not have to just take someone’s word for it when it comes to the most priceless possessions in a person’s life; their family.

Of course capturing a person doing something wrong is the primary reason for a person to go out an purchase a hidden camera system but the motivations may be different. Again, most people buy them to “spy” on employees charged with taking care of family members but there are some business owners who purchase these devices to make sure their employees are actually working and on task. There is even a segment of the population who will purchase a hidden camera to spy on their partners if they feel that person is being unfaithful. These hidden cameras are not without their share of controversy either; most people feel it is an invasion of privacy and in the case of nanny cams, while capturing video is legal in all fifty states, in thirteen states it is illegal to capture the audio portion as this is on par with wiretapping.