A few posts and weeks ago, I wrote about a case that was in front of the U.S. Supreme Court about whether police may secretly place a GPS tracking device on the car of a suspect and track the car’s movements without a search warrant. I noted that using a GPS to follow the movements of a teen driver is becoming a technological option for parents who can afford it, and I wondered whether the Supreme Court might say something in its decision that would implicate parents use of these devices.
The Court has now ruled in United States v Jones. The Justices held unanimously that police may not, without a search warrant, place a GPS device on a privately owned vehicle, and that doing so violates the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. The decision is not entirely clear about the rationale, because some of the Justices focused on the fact that the police planted the device on a privately-owned vehicle, and some focused on whether a citizen’s right to privacy includes where they drive their car.
Anyway, parents: this ruling says nothing about you using a GPS device to track the movements of your teen driver. The ruling does not apply for three reasons: First, you are not the police, but parents. Second, the car you are placing the device on is presumably your car, and even if someone else owns it, you will likely get their consent before you place the GPS. Third, teens under 18 remain under the control and oversight of parents in many ways, so I doubt that any court would say that a parent placing a GPS on a teen driver’s car violated the teen’s right to privacy.
So, if anyone tells you that the U.S. Supreme Court has banned placement of GPS devices and parents cannot track their teens with a GPS, that is not accurate.
