The creativity and ingenuity of humans will never cease to amaze me – and it wasn’t long after GPS was available that companies started selling large and expensive GPS fleet tracking devices – with horrendous monthly fees – that allowed fleet managers to retrospectively look at vehicle movements. They were typically employed in heavy vehicle fleets that were used for long-haul transportation. Data was downloaded weekly or monthly for driving efficiency to be analysed.

As the technology advanced and systems became cheaper and smaller, fleet managers who were buoyed by the success on their heavy vehicles started to fit devices to their light vehicle fleets. Again, a retrospective view could be used to compare time sheets and log books with the actual location of a vehicle. The sales rep might now need to justify why his vehicle was parked for only ten minutes outside the store he was visiting but seemed to be outside the pub for most of the afternoon. Looking back at a log a week or month after the event is one thing but with the increased coverage afforded by the mobile phone networks around the world and the reduction in price of data services, real-time vehicle tracking was added as an additional service. Now a manager could see exactly where a vehicle was at a given point in time. In the US, the first employee GPS monitoring case came before the courts in 2013. His employer suspected that the employee was submitting false time reports and returning home from extended business trips earlier than his timesheets showed. The employer’s action was to secretly attach a GPS unit to his vehicle. Their suspicions were confirmed and the tracking information showed that he was spending considerable work time at the house of his secretary – and she wasn’t taking any filing work home with her! He was dismissed and the court of appeal said that using a GPS tracking device to confirm suspicions was reasonable.

GPS units in vehicles are still available but they are now cheaper and smaller. They can be used for real-time or retrospective tracking. Going a step further though most of us carry a powerful GPS unit in our pocket every day. A modern mobile phone uses AGPS (Assisted GPS) which delivers even faster results for location tracking. There are a multitude of apps available for your smartphone that will allow other users – with permission – to track your whereabouts. It was way back in September 2011 that Tahira Donohoe made the national news when her phone was stolen at school and Tahira and her dad then used ‘Find my iPhone’ to track the bus that the thief was on. They eventually brought the police into the chase and they recovered the phone.

Going a step further, there are devices that are not much larger than two coins joined together that allow tracking and recording of the device’s location. Tile is one such example of a low-cost device that uses Bluetooth connections to nearby phones to allow a device to be tracked and located. My youngest daughter has a Tile in her favourite teddy bear so she can always find it.

There is no doubt that the technology is available to track cars; people and things and the accuracy – even inside buildings – is surprisingly good. Then there is the question of the ethics. There are certain laws in place in relation to tracking employees but I am not sure of the legality of tracking family members. Ethics and the law are not always aligned but the answer to me seems fairly simple. Inform. If you want to track employees or family members or teddy bears, make it known that tracking is in place and the reasons why. I just hope the teddy bear union doesn’t find out about my daughter’s situation!