Is GPS Tracking Ethical?

GPS tracking is a technology that is becoming widely available to the general public. It is taking on all sorts of useful applications: fleet tracking and management services, asset tracking, policing of criminals and parolees, watching a spouse suspected of cheating, keeping tabs on teens and kids, and a host of others. With this widespread proliferation we should all stop and think about some of the deeper ethical and moral dilemmas that using these type of devices can have.

Are we violating some sort of moral boundary that should not be crossed when we use GPS to track a member of our family? How about an employee in a business that we own? Is that ethical?

These questions need to be answered if we are to adopt widespread usage of GPS tracking for all of life's situations.

There are some individuals who might find the very question of whether or not using a GPS tracking device to keep tabs on the location of another human being is ethical strange. To there way of thinking, there is no reason why the use of this type of technology to manage a fleet of business vehicles or to monitor a teen's driving habits would raise any sort moral flag. However, just because their moral compass doesn't go off doesn't mean that there are potential ethical issues with this application of useful GPS technology.

The central point in this debate is going to be whether or not using GPS tracking is going to infringe on the basic freedoms that we associate with being human. If we can somehow show that knowing the location of an individual at any given point in time or the ability to independtly verify if something you are told by that individual is true or not is unethical - then GPS tracking becomes unethical.

Freedom questions are always difficult to discuss because not everyone agrees on the level of freedom that each individual has. There is even disagreement over the assertion that individuals have freedom at all! As a result, any discussion of whether the ability to track someone's location through the use of the Global Positioning System is going to be difficult at best.

Another key philospohical idea is that of a person's rights. These are closely associated with the notion of freedom in many persons since rights generally stem from our understanding of our freedoms. If, for example, I were to hold that I had an innate freedom to express myself, I might claim a freedom of speech. In our society, that freedom has been codified into law - but this is not always the case. Many perceived rights are not necessarily made laws in a society.

For example, many people believe that everyone has the right to eat enough food so that they do not starve. This does not mean that in the U.S. there is a law or a constitutional amendment protecting our right to have enough food to eat.

As you can see, rights and freedoms are very closely related. They are also areas that are highly contested among individuals and nations. One man's freedom is another's chain.

Because of this I will forgo and indepth discussion of differing views on how freedom and rights might interact with the concept of using GPS tracking to find out the location of people. Instead, I will simply show my own understanding of rights and freedoms and discuss how of these will affect a view on the use of GPS tracking with teens, spouses, children, and in the work force.

There are three main groups of people that we need to examine when considering the application of GPS technology in the home: your spouse, your child, and your teen. Each has its own issues to sort out, but in the end I think that we will find that in each case there are instances where use of these devices is ethical and can be used.

GPS Tracking A Spouse

Surely you have seen, or at least heard of the TV show "Cheaters." For those that haven't, it is a TV show that helps spouses or significant others determine whether or not a spouse or significant other is cheating on them. They use hidden cameras, surveillance equipment, and GPS technology to determine if a person is a cheater or not. They then confront the person with the information that they gathered and usually, but not always, a big fight erupts. The show is really, really sad - but it does make for great TV.

The underlying assumption behind the show is that when two people agree to be in a relationship together there is an expectation of honesty and fidelity between the two people. A husband should be faithful to his wife. A girlfriend should be faithful to a boyfriend. These obligations are spoken in a marriage union and unspoken in a dating relationship - but they are still obligations, a contract if you will, between the two parties.

Each party has a right to be treated with this level of respect and consideration. A woman should be able to know if her man cheated and vice versa. However, it is very rare that a cheater will come out and say that they are cheating on you. They wil lie to your face about it. So where does a cheater's right to privacy and your right to know if they are a cheater intersect?

In my understanding of freedom and rights, the right of one person to be protected from harm always trumps another persons right to have privacy. Since cheating on someone exposes them to high levels of risk (such as sexually transmitted diseases, violence, and abandonment), the right to be protected from cheaters trumps the right to the privacy of the cheater.

Tracking with GPS is legit in this situation.

GPS Tracking A Child

Children offer an interest set of challenges in determining the morality of tracking them. When you first had you son or daughter, you knew exactly where they were at every moment of the day - inside their mother's uterus. Mother's know exactly where the child is at every moments. They NEVER are without this information. You had complete knowledge about their location.

Once they were born, you or your spouse know exactly where your child is at every moment of every day. They are under the direct supervision of your spouse, a relative, or yourself every moment of the day. There position in the world is always known.

As they grow older still, children generally receive more care takers - such as a school teacher, Sunday school parent, a babysitter, or a friend's parent. You still know where they are and exactly where to find them if you ever wanted to come and get them.

As your kids grow older and older they will become increasingly responsible for letting you know where they are at any given point in time - but you still expect to know where they are. Even with a teenage daughter who is an 8th grader in middle school parents will want to know where she is and what she is doing. This is a very reasonable expectation and one that I think all parents should have. You have the right to know where you child is because you are responsible for their safety.

This is where GPS enters the discussion. In all these circumstances that were mentioned above parents are relying on the word of other individuals to know their child's location. A teacher is expected to keep the child at school. A babysitter is expected to keep the child at home. Parents expect to know where their child is. It has been this way for years and years and years.

So what difference does it make if a teacher or a GPS location device tells you where your child is? Is the technological solution really that different? I think that the answer is no. Using GPS tracking devices to verify your child's location in the world is no different than expecting them to be exactly where a babysitter, relative, or friend say that the child is. You simply have technology on your side.

GPS Tracking For Teens

Teens differ from children slightly in that they do expect to have a greater level of privacy than children do. Teens often demand many of the rights and freedoms that adults posses while at the same time shrugging off all the responsibilities associated with those freedoms. A teen wants to drive a car but doesn't want the responsibility of buying and maintaining a car.

But are teens really any different from kids in their relationship to their parents and the associated rights and freedoms associated with that relationship? I certainly don't think so.

Parents are still responsible for a teens safety. They are still responsible for a teens maturation and development into a productive and useful member of society. Teens are just older children in the grand scheme of things.

However, once teens leave the home and no longer rely exclusively on their parents for support a parent should not continue to use GPS tracking on them. The responsibility of the parent has ended and now the teen must learn to fend for themselves.

Having discussed the implications of this technology in the home let us turn our gaze to the use of GPS tracking in the work place. We will find that there are some similarities between the relationships in the family and those between employee and employer. It all hinges on the notion of a contract.

Rights of Business Owners To Use GPS Tracking

There is little doubt that business owners appear to benefit immensely from installing GPS tracking devices inside a vehicle of fleets. They are tools that can end up saving the business tons of money in the following ways:

• Save time and fuel by improving routing - the closest employee gets the service call
• Reduced fuel expenses by providing incentive to eliminate unnecessary vehicle idling
• Optimized routes that save gas and time
  
• Improved worker efficiency
• Allows for manageable fleet maintenance scheduling
• Asset recovery in the case of stolen property
  

Any employer who has a fleet of vehicles can benefit from the installation of GPS fleet tracking devices. This will improve the business' bottom line and help it become healthier and more productive. A business owner has the right to do this for their business.

Rights of Employees

What are your rights as an employee? Can an employer use GPS tracking to monitor your working habits and efficiencies? Do they have the right to make sure that you are fulfilling your end of the bargain?

I think that when an employee becomes an employee they do agree to have their work monitored by their boss. It is part of the agreement that the enter into to be employed. They are agreeing to exchange their wages for doing a good job at "x". As a result, the employer has the right to know how x is getting done and can use GPS tracking to make sure that "x" is being done the way that they are expecting it to be done.

So the right to privacy is left at the door of the office since the worker has agreed to accomplish "x" for a wage.

There is little doubt that in theory GPS tracking can be extremely useful in keeping tabs on criminals. It is used widely in the administration of house arrest sentences and in the monitoring of sexual offenders. It has even been used to help keep kids in school.

The theory behind it is that if a criminal is under the scrutiny of law enforcement personnel then they will be more likely to obey the law. A person on house arrest is less likely to break that arrest if they know that the police will be notified if they leave their place of residence. That, anyway, is how the thinking goes.

This theory has come into questions due to some assaults that on GPS monitored criminals. Here is a quote from an article from CNN illustrating the point:

Experts say GPS can create a false sense of security [when used to track criminals] because its capabilities are overestimated. Jill Levenson, an associate professor of human sciences at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, said many people believe it is "some magic bullet or panacea that prevents crimes."

Levenson also concurs with other experts who say the technology is used too sweepingly. Twenty-seven states have some mandatory requirement that the devices be used on sex offenders, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Only six states have no specific provisions for such monitoring.

The real life impetus for the article mentioned above was the story of a thirteen year old girl who was raped and murdered by a known sex offender equipped with a GPS tracking device. This device was use to passively monitor the convict's position information - meaning that the police only had access to the information on the device when they have the device in their physical custody.

This highlights one of the main drawbacks of using GPS tracking technology to monitor criminals - the application is spotty.

So if the application of the technology isn't even that good, is it okay ethically to track them? Yes, I think it is.

The main reason for this is that in committing a criminal act against society they have suspended any rights or freedoms that they would otherwise have inside that society. By raping, or murdering, or stealing, or engaging in fraud a person loses some of their rights because they have taken away the rights of others. Our whole penal system is built on this principle and should not appear shocking to anyone.

There right to privacy has been suspended by their criminal act and the threat that they will commit another similar crime. Yes, it is ethical to use GPS tracking on criminals.

Is it ethical for you to use GPS tracking on strangers? No, it is not ethical!

"Woah, up to this point you have said that was ethical to use GPS tracking on your kids, on your teens, on your spouse, on your employees, and on convicted criminals - what makes strangers so much different from all of these other people?"

The first thing that makes them different is that a complete stranger is not a party with in you any sort of social or moral contract. In the case of parents and kids/teens, parents have a moral and social obligation to assure that their children grow up safely and justly. They are responsible for this development and are able to use the tools available to them in order to aid them in this task.

Spouses have entered an agreement to be true and faithful to their mate. So when one spouse is under suspicion of breaking that agreement it is within the rights of the other spouse to do some fact finding. They have a right to know if their spouse is being faithful or not.

Employers and employees have entered into a similar agreement with each other. Employers agree to pay a certain wage to an employee for a certain amount of labor that is at a certain level of productivity. If the employee agrees to this then they are obligated to hold up there end of the bargain and they should allow the employer the ability to check on whether or not they are doing so.

In all these cases, GPS tracking is about helping people fulfill the contracts that they have. When it comes to complete strangers, you have no contract with them in any way, shape, or form. You should never use GPS tracking to learn about their location. Doing so is wrong and unethical!