Divorce leads to approval of GPS tracking in New Jersey
A divorce case in New Jersey has resulted in the first time a state court has approved the use of GPS devices to track individuals; last week a New Jersey appellate court ruled against a man who sued his ex-wife for placing a GPS device in the car she and her husband shared
A divorce case in New Jersey has resulted in the first time a state court has approved the use of GPS devices to track individuals.
Last week a New Jersey appellate court ruled against a man who sued his ex-wife for placing a GPS device in the car she and her husband shared. The filed a lawsuit stating that the GPS tracker violated his privacy rights, but the court found that the ex-husband was not entitled to privacy because the device was placed in the car by his then wife and it only tracked his movement in public areas.
The Supreme Court is expected to consider a case next year on whether law enforcement officials can use GPS tracking devices without a warrant.
Some civil rights lawyers oppose the use of GPS devices as they collect a continuous stream of information and are constantly transmitting making them more intrusive than traditional means of surveillance.
On a post on the Technology and Market Law blog, Venkat Balasubramani, a Seattle-based internet technology lawyer, writes, “The case law says that you have no expectation of privacy when you are in a public space, but a GPS device can track your every movement in a way that someone who physically followed you in a car couldn’t conceivably do.”
Balasubramani goes on to say that in some states courts have found GPS tracking to be in violation of Fourth Amendment rights.
For now, the ruling in New Jersey clears the way for law enforcement officials to begin using the tracking devices for a variety of purposes including catching cheating spouses, insurance fraud, and child custody issues.
