Recent decisions by federal courts in Maryland have made it clear that parties who secretly use GPS trackers to monitor the movements of their former spouses and romantic partners can subject the tracker user to a lawsuit for monetary damages. Judge Paula Xinis provided a memorandum opinion in Demo v. Kirksey et al. Broadly reject motions to dismiss such a lawsuit.
This case involved litigation between parents of a minor child, which included defendants who were investigators and attorneys representing the persecuting partner. A tracker was hidden in a diaper bag accompanying a minor child who visited the plaintiff on a regular basis in accordance with the custody arrangements negotiated between the parents. Another was placed in the plaintiff’s vehicle.
This meant quoting Judge Xinis: “The tracking software for both the diaper bag and the vehicle enabled monitoring 24 hours a day, seven days a week for six consecutive months.”
This sparked the lawsuit of “intrusion into seclusion”, harassment under Maryland criminal statutes, and violations of Pennsylvania wiretapping laws.
The case raised new, undecided questions under the laws of Maryland and Pennsylvania, both as to whether GPS tracking, as occurred in this case, constituted a violation of plaintiff’s reasonable expectations of privacy, and as to that which state laws were applicable.
Ultimately, Judge Xinis analyzed recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings regarding “the zone in which a person reasonably expects privacy” and concluded that the prosecution outlined in this case is punishable because the “defendants intentionally intruded into the invaded privacy of demo”.
So GPS trackers should beware that you may only have to pay for your intrusion at the seclusion. For more information, see: https://www.maryland-law.com/library/gps-trackers-and-invasion-of-privacy-time-to-pay-up-.cfm
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