Gurtowski’s maternal anxieties were easily relieved. But the Louise Woodward ““nanny murder’’ has raised far graver issues of safety and accountability in child care. At a time when working parents are reaching for every reassurance they can find, the newest security blanket may be Internet video monitoring. About a dozen day-care centers from Michigan to Florida offer such systems, and many more plan to add them soon.

Here’s how it works. A daycare center installs an online system that links high-speed computers to cameras trained on designated communal areas. It gives user names and passwords to parents of children in its care. (Centers keep a list of registered users.) From their PCs, those with access may go to the center’s Web site and click on rooms they’d like to view. In seconds (or longer, depending on Internet traffic and the user’s modem speed) a silent image of a playroom, cafeteria or gym appears. If your child is learning a song, throwing a tantrum–or being hurt or abused–you’ll see it.

It sounds good, but does high-tech surveillance offer any real security? So far, there has been no reported incident of abuse caught online, or of outsiders jumping security-code gates. And Bill McDonald, whose McDonald Insurance of Marietta, Ga., insures 430 child-care centers nationwide, believes such systems will reduce accidents and incidents of abuse, ultimately lowering liability premiums for facilities that install them. ““It makes teachers more aware that Big Brother is watching,’’ he says. ““It makes them take more care than if he wasn’t.’’ Surprisingly, many day-care workers say spending their day ““on air’’ isn’t bad at all. Not only can it help parents get a better handle on their children’s environment and routine, they say, it also makes parents more appreciative of how hard teachers work to achieve both.

Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, claims such systems foster an unhealthy mistrust of day-care workers. Others say the money spent on them would be better used in hiring more employees or raising current workers’ pay.

So far, Internet surveillance is for a moneyed few. It may be years before such systems are cheap enough to install at home, to monitor nannies. ParentNet of Roswell, Ga., recently installed a $25,000 system in Houston. That’s twice the cost of a closed-circuit TV system, which tapes but doesn’t transmit. Some centers charge participating parents $5 to $10 a week for online usage. Others absorb the costs. But whoever’s paying the bill, the technology still has a long way to go. The fastest systems transmit at a choppy, Claymation-like six frames per second. The slowest look like slide shows. At such sluggish speeds, some worry, a pat on the head may look like a slap.

So far, parents have registered no such complaint. For many, being able to glimpse one’s child in the middle of a workday–prompted by suspicions of abuse or just some early-morning tears–far outweighs costs, techno-glitches and Orwellian concerns. Because, as any parent will tell you, the security blanket that works is the one to hold onto.