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GPS Tracking of State Worker Raises Privacy Issues

Posted by Soulskill on from the you-can-trust-us dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from a Times Union article: "How far can state government go in keeping tabs on its employees? That's the question a mid-level appeals court will consider in the wake of a lawsuit filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union against the state Labor Department, in the case of a fired state worker who was tracked with a GPS device that investigators secretly attached to his personal car. ... State officials tracked Cunningham's whereabouts by secretly attaching a GPS device to his BMW. The electronic tailing went beyond what would normally be termed Cunningham's work hours, since the device was on for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They even tracked him on a multi-day family vacation."

35 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Glad I work in the private sector. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    No reputable company would ever try something this egregious .

    1. Re:Glad I work in the private sector. by errandum · · Score: 2

      I don't think tracking you with a GPS during work hours is wrong. From my understanding the problem was they were tracking him 24/7, and that's illigal.

      Just making sure you're where you're supposed to be during your work hours should be expected.

    2. Re:Glad I work in the private sector. by rubycodez · · Score: 3, Insightful

      without your knowledge? putting tracker on you personal car? if any executive at my employer did that to me, I'd cram said GPS far into their gastrointestinal egress, without lube. that's if I was in a good mood....

    3. Re:Glad I work in the private sector. by Hope+Thelps · · Score: 3, Funny

      At my company they just set you up to have an affair

      Oh, you poor thing. You couldn't just say "no" for fear of hurting his feelings?

      --
      To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
    4. Re:Glad I work in the private sector. by mrchaotica · · Score: 4, Insightful

      the problem was they were tracking him 24/7, and that's illigal.

      That, and attaching a device to his personal car should be considered some kind of tresspassing/vandalism.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    5. Re:Glad I work in the private sector. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      I don't think employers should be able to electronically monitor you at all, without your knowledge.

      About 10 years ago, I had reason to look up the law. I found to my surprise that in my state, and employer can use hidden cameras and monitor your email, etc. without even telling you about it.

      Of course that was 10 years ago, and things might have changed since. But I see no ethical reason why an employer should be able to monitor an employee without their knowledge. I would have a lot less problem with the idea if the law simply required that people be informed about it.

    6. Re:Glad I work in the private sector. by mikehoskins · · Score: 2

      > That, and attaching a device to his personal car should be considered some kind of tresspassing/vandalism.

      It violates the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution, as well as the 14th Amendment, Section 1:

      --------------------

      Amendment IV

      The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

      --------------------

      AMENDMENT XIV
      Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.

      Note: Article I, section 2, of the Constitution was modified by section 2 of the 14th amendment.

      Section 1.
      All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

    7. Re:Glad I work in the private sector. by tragedy · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, actually, I can think of plenty of ways you could be "set up" to "have an affair" as long as "have an affair" remains in quotes. Quite simply, a supervisor at work could require you to work late on various nights but arrange it in such a way that you have no proof that you really worked late. Then they could bring out someone they've hired to claim to have had an affair with you and tell your spouse that you were lying about working late. Maybe they could give you a company credit card as well, then throw some hotel charges onto it.

      People with lots of power over you, like employers, have plenty of power to frame you all sorts of things. For example, if they wanted to fire you for whistleblowing, they could set up an environment where employees are made comfortable by supervisors leaving 5 minutes early every day, but marking their full hours on their timesheet. Then they could gather "evidence" against you, such as by tracking your car with a gps tracking device, and then fire you, or maybe even prosecute you, for fraudulently filling out your timecard. Who would believe you? It's a time-honoured tradition for getting rid of unwanted employees: give them implicit, or even explicit (but undocumented) permission to do something that's technically against policy, then bust them for violating the policy.

    8. Re:Glad I work in the private sector. by Venner · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >>
      These days most employers have some boilerplate they hand out when you take a job that says they will do this if they feel it necessary. Really you should assume they monitoring you while you are on the job, if for no reason than protect themselves from things like that $2 billion loss UBS is stuck with.
      >>

      The point is that these were government workers. Your constitutional rights trump most of what they would ask you to waive. And courts have said that, say, your fourth amendment right require informed consent to waive, which a blanket waiver cannot satisfy.

      --
      A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
    9. Re:Glad I work in the private sector. by belmolis · · Score: 2

      Such rights don't necessarily apply when the government is your employer. Just as private employers can do things to employees that the government cannot do to citizens in general, when the government acts as an employer, it acquires some of the privileges of private employers. For example, when an employee speaks on behalf of a government agency, the government has the right to control what he or she says, in spite of the First Amendment. This isn't to say that constitutional restrictions do not apply to the government as employer, but when they do and when they don't is complicated.

    10. Re:Glad I work in the private sector. by niftymitch · · Score: 2

      ...snip...

      If you take your private car out during the time you're supposed to be working, the company should be allowed to check that, right?

      This is inside out...
      If you take your private car someplace during normal work hours -- NO.
      Should they notice you are not at work-- Yes, but they do not need to
      know where you go just that you are absent.

      More apropos will be privacy issue should you visit a doctor, planned
      parenthood, a psychiatrist, AA meeting or religious obligation. Yes even visit the
      offices of the FBI or a legal counsel because the company is engaged
      in something illegal or fraudulent as they are obviously doing.

      --
      Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
  2. What was the state thinking?!? by bignetbuy · · Score: 2

    What reasons could the state possibly have had to put a GPS tracker on an employee's personal vehicle? And track the vehicle outside of business hours? This stinks of big brother and privacy intrusions. What an employee does on their own personal time and in their own personal car should be their own personal business. I could be buying hookers and blow every weekend but if I show up on time during the week and do my job, the state should have no say in the matter.

    1. Re:What was the state thinking?!? by nharmon · · Score: 2

      This appears to be a case where the employee was using his vehicle for work-related transportation, and his supervisors began to suspect that the hours he was reporting were not the hours he was actually working. So instead of hiring someone to follow the employee (read: expensive), they attached a cheap GPS tracker and then retrieved it days or weeks later.

      Maybe a better solution would have been to provide him a state vehicle with a hidden GPS tracker. :P

    2. Re:What was the state thinking?!? by increment1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As alluded to in the article, they were looking into his timesheets and his assertion that he worked odd hours.

      It looks like the state thought he was lying about his hours, and so used the GPS tracker to catch him in a lie concerning hours worked. It seems a touch excessive, but government jobs likely require a high standard of proof in order to fire an employee.

    3. Re:What was the state thinking?!? by Amouth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe a better solution would have been to provide him a state vehicle with a hidden GPS tracker. :P

      Or an Obvious one, functional or not. That might have got him back into line if there was wrong doing, or show he wasn't worth keeping, either way it would have been far cheaper than a lawsuit even if they win it.

      --
      '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
    4. Re:What was the state thinking?!? by flaming+error · · Score: 2

      > government jobs likely require a high standard of proof

      Or at least a reason that sounds better than "we fired him for being a whistleblower."

      Although somehow, "we gps-tracked a whistleblower's car 24/7" doesn't sound much better.

    5. Re:What was the state thinking?!? by idontgno · · Score: 3, Interesting

      TFA states that they had not exhausted all non-GPS solutions to tracking him.

      Even that formulation misses a critical point: The objective which would have been meaningful to their goal (proving timecard fraud) was not "track him"; the appropriate objective is "verify workplace attendance". The phrase in TFA (yeah, I know, no one reads that... just go with it for a second) "worked odd hours at his job" (emphasis mine) indicates that finding out where he was at any time should not have been the objective... only finding out when he was in the office. (He wasn't working from someplace else, since the presumption is "at his job"... at his place of employment.)

      So GPS tracking is solving the wrong problem. A webcam monitoring ingress and egress to his office, or computer system logs... a physical access control like a card entry system would have gone a long ways towards determining the real information they needed.

      GPS was the wrong solution because it was answering the wrong question. It's not justified.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    6. Re:What was the state thinking?!? by idontgno · · Score: 2

      The state investigated his work habits by tracking his vehicle. He was eventually fired based on the evidence, which he does not dispute, as he is not seeking reinstatement or back pay. These employees can not be fired without extraordinary evidence; the sort produced by, say, tracking a vehicle.

      Or, don't forget, waterboarding. That's pretty good at getting results, too. I bet we can get the guy to admit to being Al Qaeda's inside man in NYC if we're willing to foot the water bill.

      GPS tracking is a potentially applicable tool for... tracking locations. It is hunting flies with shotguns for the purposes of monitoring workplace attendance, with the lovely side effect of shredding constitutionally-protected privacy rights.

      Your argument seems to be the same kind of weak apologist crap we see in "Think of the children" or "The terrorists will win!" scaremongering. The ends do not justify every means. Otherwise the Bill of Rights is a waste of ink.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    7. Re:What was the state thinking?!? by tompaulco · · Score: 2

      Just because he may have been defrauding the government doesn't mean we should condone illegal and unconstitutional methods in order to try to find him out.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    8. Re:What was the state thinking?!? by SecurityGuy · · Score: 2

      Problem: Employee claiming weird hours

      Solution: Employee, the following concerns exist about the quality of your work: <list>. Consequently, you are no longer authorized to work weird hours.

      Then you simply fire his ass when he can't be bothered to show up at normal o'clock like everybody else.

  3. Acting like this is a new thing... by MimeticLie · · Score: 2

    Tracking personal vehicles without a warrant? Why not? If it's good enough for one agency of the government, why not for all of them?

  4. New York by Hatta · · Score: 4, Informative

    New York's court of appeals has already determined that GPS tracking by law enforcement is illegal without a warrant. Since the powers of cops are a superset of the powers of an individual, this case should be a slam dunk for the plaintiff.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    1. Re:New York by Hatta · · Score: 2

      Ah, yes. Administrative law. Nothing but an end run around the constitution. You can't just make up a new body of law and pretend the constitution doesn't apply to it. Either consent of the individual is required to affix something to his property or it is not. If it is, then you must get a warrant to do so. If it is not, then anyone may do so. Anything else is unconstitutional.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    2. Re:New York by Hatta · · Score: 2

      Yes, I know. It's surprising how many people deny that fact. It's important to point that out on a regular basis to make it harder to deny. Counter the Big Lie with the Big Truth.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  5. Sounds like what Cisco did to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ex-Cisco employee here. Anon for a reason. They planted a gps tracker in my laptop and pushed down gps tracking software to my cell phone (personal phone, but attached to their email servers). All reporting back to some database servers in Cisco's corporate datacenters.

    Found this, confronted them, and negotiated a significant settlement for not going public with the info. Don't care if they track me down now based on this posting, though, as they just laid off a ton of my great friends who remained. So, hopefully this will gain traction and other Cisco employees will look into this unethical (and illegal?) tracking of employees.

    And you don't even want to know what kind of monitoring stuff they snuck into their IP Phones... If the public ever figures that out, Cisco has a great cover story ready: there's so much legacy code from Selsius (the original manufacturer of the phone technology) that it was cleverly hidden and unnoticed through years of QA testing.

    1. Re:Sounds like what Cisco did to me by sjames · · Score: 2

      Probably not, that would require making the incident a matter of public record and still wouldn't prove that the AC here is the same person and not just a good guesser.

    2. Re:Sounds like what Cisco did to me by phoenix321 · · Score: 2

      Declaring him in breach of a contract means publicly announcing that they GPS-tracked their employees and confirm it on file.

      With this info public and confirmed, thousands of current and ex-employees will sue them for truckloads of money.

      Thousands of employees filing claims is several orders of magnitude more expensive than reclaiming the settlement money of one single contract. Adding to that, the reputation damage of Cisco is incredible - in the eyes of the general public, their customers and, most importantly, their potential new employees.

      In the very sensitive market for a) network security equipment and b) rare specialist tech employees, confirming underhanded practices and snugging in hidden software in equipment is not only heavily frowned upon, but tantamount to corporate suicide. Who would buy firewall technology from a company known to sneak hidden software into their equipment? Which heavily sought-after techie - who are usually very keen on privacy and do-not-track policies - would apply for a job with a company known to bug their *private* phones?

      Cisco would essentially be dead in the water, soon joining Nortel.

      So no, they will never call an anonymous source out on a non-disclosure contract. They can dismiss this now as "just rumors and FUD", which it actually is. Confirming it with a lawsuit would cost them billions, so they will remain perfectly quiet, even if these rumors were true.

    3. Re:Sounds like what Cisco did to me by GameboyRMH · · Score: 2

      He probably attached his personal Blackberry to their BBES server (big mistake, this gives the BBES admin total power over your phonre) and then they pushed a GPS tracker app to his Blackberry.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    4. Re:Sounds like what Cisco did to me by gl4ss · · Score: 2

      you'd notice the gps being on though? wastes battery life and all that.
      cellid/nearby-wifi-or-bt tracking can be done quite silently.

      the fuckers who did the pushing of the app should be quartered though. no chance in hell they didn't know that they had no business doing that. just following orders my ass. the worst kind of IT support staff is the dolts who think that it's their job to spy on the employees - and don't even bother with whats legal or not. tough luck if that makes sniffing your corporations network illegal, just do your admin stuff otherwise(it's possible).

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  6. Fan-tastic... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Kate Nepveu, an assistant solicitor general, said the state realized the GPS tracking was intrusive, but Cunningham's pattern of misconduct and the difficulty of constant in-person surveillance justified the technique."

    Yup, we knew that we had no business doing it; but he was a Bad Guy and doing our jobs is Hard. Cry, cry, pity me... Is there any sort of procedural abuse that one couldn't justify with exactly that line? Virtually everything we call "due process" is inconvenient for the prosecution, and I've never heard of somebody going after someone that they wouldn't at least say was guilty of misconduct...

    1. Re:Fan-tastic... by Asic+Eng · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What's truly fucked up here is that they felt that they couldn't fire him simply because of his "pattern of misconduct". They appear to have felt that they needed more proof or something.

      I interpret that to mean "there wasn't actually a pattern of misconduct, we went on a fishing expedition hoping to find one".

  7. Re:How is this different ... by Roberticus · · Score: 2

    I wouldn't hold my breath hoping for a worker-friendly, anti-Big Brother decision from the current Supreme Court.

  8. Overtime! by peacefinder · · Score: 4, Funny

    If his employer was tracking him, it must have been for work purposes, right? So since he was on the clock, he should at least be paid his contracted rate for all the time he was tracked.

    --
    With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
  9. You're wrong RTFA by geekoid · · Score: 2

    "He was defrauding the government by lying about his hours to collect undue compensation."
    alledgedly, and he does duispute it.

    " He was eventually fired based on the evidence, which he does not dispute, as he is not seeking reinstatement or back pay. "
    Not exactly:

    "Stoughton, in a hearing Thursday before the Appellate Division Third Judicial Department, said she wasn't arguing that Cunningham get his $115,000 job back, but that he should receive another hearing without the GPS-based evidence."

    The hearing will determin if he gets his job back. He isn't siuning about gettng his job back, he is suing to get a fair trial regard ig he shoudl ahve been removed in the first place. These are different things.

    " Your reaction is also why he will eventually be awarded a big fat settlement at taxpayer expense; "
    WTF do you base THAT on? this hearing has nothing to do with any settlemsn iother the getting his job back, and presumable, awarded what ever pay he would have earned.

    In the guise of belittling someone for their 'knee jerk' reaction, you made a knee jerk reaction. The article should take the average persona bout 45 seconds to read. You should have take 5 minute to read the article before posting.

    And teachers salary come from a different pool.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  10. Re:The key is the word employee by gl4ss · · Score: 2

    I guess you missed the ending of the blurb which says 24/7, he wasn't on clock 24/7..

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.