This is just like Spy v. Spy – Amazon.com is selling a $175 GPS tracking unit that you can hide somewhere in your vehicle or on your person. It will:

  1. Tell you exactly where you or your vehicle was (within a couple of meters, anyways) for every second the unit is active (or at least until the 2 batterys run out).
  2. Track your vehicle’s top speed and average speed, as well as the vehicle’s speed at any given location.
  3. Interface all of this data with Google Earth, so you can get some visual idea of where the tracking unit was at any point during the tracking period.
  4. Record everything that people nearby are thinking using the revolutionary “mind-read” circuit. (OK – maybe not, but still…)
GPS tracking key from Land Air Sea

GPS tracking key from Land Air Sea. It includes a magnet for easy attachment.

While this is technically for tracking your own movements – say figuring out where and how often you drive your truck to make deliveries, for instance – the real market is undoubtedly spying.

Want to know where your spouse is driving when you’re not around? Stick this thing behind the glove box next time you borrow their car.

Curious to know if your neighbor is a closet civil war re-enactment buff? This unit comes with a strong magnet that you can use to attach the tracker to the bottom of your neighbor’s car.

Have a pesky teen with a lead foot? Hide this unit in your teen’s car and you can find out how many times they broke the law.

Of course, we don’t condone any of these uses, and we really shouldn’t make light of this technology (it’s just an easy way to break the ice). There are laws against illegal surveillance, and the truth is we’re all entitled to a little privacy…however:

A man in NY was successfully prosecuted because of one of these Land Air Sea GPS tracking keys. Evidently, his wife suspected him of infidelity. Unbeknown to him, she added this GPS tracking device to his car. During this time, this man evidently attacked and killed his teenage baby sitter (awful story, and for the record we hope he’s going to jail for a long, long time). Using the data from the GPS tracking device, the prosecution was able to prove this man’s guilt.

The legal precedent here is intriguing – can the government use GPS tracking data from your cell phone, your car’s navigation system, or from the secret tracking device that your spouse hid under your spare tire to prosecute you? One court seems to think so.

We’re going to spend more time talking about GPS tracking in the next few weeks, simply because these devices are getting cheap enough to gain some real presence in our everday lives. Next up, we’ll talk about how these GPS devices work.

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