Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia
GPS Tracking Devices
A friend of mine has reason to believe that her husband is cheating. We have come up with the idea of planting a GPS device on his truck so that either she or I could track him to the suspected location or locations. If I was the one tracking him I would take pictures at the location evidencing his rendezvous. None of the pictures would involve any sort of illegal entry, they would simply prove that he was at the location with his ''friend''.
The truck on which we would plant the device is his primary means of transportation, he uses it in his business and she sometimes works for him in his business (a sole proprietorship) and is therefore often in the truck. She is not on the title to the truck.
None of this evidence is being obtained for use in Court. She simply wants to know for certain so that she can leave him with a clear conscience. She will not use this information to make a case for adultery or try to use it as ammunition to get a better settlement. The marriage is of short duration and she would not get anything under VA law anyway.
The question is if either she or I would be breaking any laws by planting such a device and using it to track him?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: GPS Tracking Devices
No, I know of no Virginia law which would be clearly violated by your planting of the tracking device which you've described and for the purposes which you've outlined. Notice, however, that I've qualified my answer somewhat with the use of the adverb clearly since it's possible that some obscure provision of some privacy act type statute(federal or state) might possibly be arguably infringed upon by such conduct.
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