I HAVE a friend who was constantly being videoed at her job.
No, she wasn’t dating Edison Chen. Instead, like many other improverished undergrads, she was giving tuition to a rich kid with a very kiasu mother.
Even though the girl was attending one of those elite girls’ schools, the mother would instruct my friend to “speak slowly” and “baby my child”.
Despite the fact that she was already in her final year in NIE, my friend just thought about the money and nodded perfunctorily at her demands.
Then she found out about the hidden camera.
Ironically enough, it was the child who gave the game away, when workers came to paint the house one day. As they prepared to drape a cloth over some shelves near the table, she stopped them with the immortal words: “Don’t, you’ll cover the camera.”
It was at that point that my friend realised why the mother would ask the child at the start of every tuition session: “Have you switched it on?”
At the next session, she began to notice the telltale little red light emanating from somewhere on the shelves. So she began to sit with her back to the camera. But it didn’t ease her discomfort at being watched.
To cut a long story short, she quit after a few months. Mainly because she didn’t appreciate being filmed without permission.
In retrospect, the mother probably just wanted to ensure that her daughter was being taught properly, and maybe wanted to ensure nothing was stolen.
And surveillance devices are reportedly common in schools these days, from audio monitoring devices to CCTV cameras.
Having gone to school in a time when handphones were the size and weight of large bricks, this is all news to me.
Back then, having an OHP in a classroom was considered a technological wonder, and the only recording devices we had were a pen and an exercise book.
Reactions from colleagues I asked in the newsroom have been mixed, from “what’s wrong with filming?” to “how can she do that?”
Some pointed out that many parents install security cameras because they worry about leaving their maids at home with the kids.
With recent cases such as the teacher who slept with her 15-year-old student occuring, perhaps parents do have a right to be paranoid.
Maybe it’s also got to do with the gradual erosion of the teacher’s position as an authority figure, with modern parents more prepared to take umbrage with teaching methods.
But my colleagues also agreed that my friend should at least have been informed that she was being filmed.
In this day and age, you can never quite get away from surveillance devices.
Still, it would be nice to have a say in the matter every now and then.