New Jersey: Court Approves Private GPS Spying

The Newspaper
by The Newspaper

Police are not alone in the ability to secretly use GPS devices to track someone without his knowledge, the New Jersey Superior Court’s Appellate Division ruled Thursday. A three-judge panel made this decision in the context of a privacy invasion suit brought by Kenneth R. Villanova against Innovative Investigations Inc after his now ex-wife hired the private-eye company to spy on him. She intended to document alleged infidelities prior to filing for divorce in May 2008. At the firm’s suggestion, Villanova’s wife installed the tracking device on her husband’s GMC Yukon-Denali which followed the vehicle’s every move for forty days.


Kenneth Villanova argued that the incident violated privacy statutes. He added a privacy violation claim against his wife during divorce proceedings but had to file the present case separately against the private investigator who followed him. State law forbids intrusion into private places.

“One who intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon the solitude or seclusion of another or his private affairs or concerns, is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person,” the appellate division wrote in a 1989 case summarizing the statute.

Attorneys for the private investigators countered that Villanova was tracked on public roads and had no expectation of privacy. Villanova had no tangible proof that he drove in any secluded location, which the court saw as the only place one’s privacy could be invaded.

“We find plaintiff’s arguments unpersuasive,” Judge Joseph F. Lisa wrote. “We hold that the placement of a GPS device in plaintiff’s vehicle without his knowledge, but in the absence of evidence that he drove the vehicle into a private or secluded location that was out of public view and in which he had a legitimate expectation of privacy, does not constitute the tort of invasion of privacy.”

The court found that it made no difference whether Villanova’s movements were tracked for forty minutes or forty days in the eyes of the law.

A copy of the decision is available in a 70k PDF file at the source link below.

Villanova v. Innovative Investigations (New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division, 7/7/2011)

[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]

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  • Srogers Srogers on Jul 12, 2011

    This is just a higher tech (and lazier) way of having the PI follow they guy around. If it's not illegal (I don'n know) to have a PI tracking someone, why is this any different?

    • See 1 previous
    • Stuki Stuki on Jul 12, 2011

      @GS650G The light at the end of the tunnel, is that Moore's law predicts that GPS devices will in not to long be so cheap that anyone can buy several dozen smaller and smaller versions of them and spread them around liberally. Like on cop cars and the cars of politicians and others supposedly more important than the rest. A world where absolutely anyone can trivially spy on absolutely anything anyone else does, may well be inferior to some tech free utopia where noone can spy on anyone; but it is still infinitely better than a world where only a select few (that'd be those powerful and well connected) can spy on everyone else. I'd be a lot more comfortable about Obama being able to direct some alphabet soup to spy on me, if I could similarly direct my cheap Chinese gadget do the same to him. Symmetry is always and everywhere an unqualified positive in power relationships.

  • Old Guy Old Guy on Jul 12, 2011

    So the trick is to find the GPS device your wife puts on your car, and put it on somebody else's car. Wait a minute...I have to run out in the parking lot.

    • See 2 previous
    • Kps Kps on Jul 13, 2011

      No, no, you put it on your wife's car. “Mrs Smith, the good news is that we found out who your husband is cheating on you with. The bad news is that we found out your boyfriend is also cheating on you. The really bad news...”

  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
  • Carson D The UAW has succeeded in organizing a US VW plant before. There's a reason they don't teach history in the schools any longer. People wouldn't make the same mistakes.
  • B-BodyBuick84 Mitsubishi Pajero Sport of course, a 7 seater, 2.4 turbo-diesel I4 BOF SUV with Super-Select 4WD, centre and rear locking diffs standard of course.
  • Corey Lewis Think how dated this 80s design was by 1995!
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