One of the ways that parents can use technology to keep close track of their teen’s driving is to install a Global Positioning System in the teen’s car. I have not researched the expense, reliability, or practicality of these systems, but there is no doubt that there are technology companies that are aggressively marketing these systems to parents for the specific purpose of conducting surveillance of their newly-licensed drivers.
So, it may be of great interest to traffic safety advocates, not just the law enforcement community, that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether a police department’s secret installation of a GPS on the car of a suspected drug dealer violates the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of freedom from a search without a warrant. A trial court said that the technique, used by the District of Columbia police, was legal, but an appeals court disagreed.
The case would seem to have the potential to implicate parents installing a GPS on a car driven by a teenager, either secretly or without the teen’s consent. There are of course, obvious differences, legally and practically, between police officers trying to get information on someone suspected of criminal activity — the issue in the case is not whether surveillance is legal, but with ether surveillance without first getting a search warrant impermissible — and parents monitoring a teen’s behavior. On the other hand, teen drivers, even those under age 18, have a variety of legal rights, including constitutional rights, and as lawyers involved in school discipline cases know, when students have rights and when they are subject to their parents’ rules can be complex issue. So, traffic safety advocates in general and those concerned with safe teen driving in particulate will need to watch this case, to see if it implicates what can be one of the most effective tools for controlling teen drivers – tracking their movements in a car — with or without their knowledge and consent.
The Supreme Court case, to be argued in late 2011, is U.S. v Jones.
