Parents are now sent daily alerts about their children’s activities, but some say it is at odds with the ethos of camps

Summer camp is a cherished American tradition where children are untethered from their families and given a formative taste of freedom.

Yet in an era of anxious helicopter parenting, campers’ mothers and fathers are finding it harder to let go. Now, thanks to facial recognition software, they no longer have to.

Summer camp surveillance is booming. While boys and girls at camps across the US are making new friends and trying unfamiliar activities in bucolic settings, the camps themselves are providing daily updates to tens of thousands of parents on their offspring.

Privacy campaigners have raised concerns. “Summer camp has traditionally been a place of exploration and a pervasive surveillance system seems completely at odds with those purposes,” said Matt Cagle, an attorney at the