Children are told the toy, which is based on a 2004 book by Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell, is watching to report their good and bad behavior back to Santa Claus.

“I know a lot of families just see this as a fun thing, but it’s worth thinking about the messages it’s giving to children about surveillance by authorities,” Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, told the New York Times.

“Personally, I consider success as a parent to be teaching my kids to do the right thing even when nobody is watching, whether they be from the North Pole or anywhere else.”

Security experts agreed that the toy was sending the wrong message.