I'm about to buy my next scooby (WRX) and its fitted with a tracker, Now I have always been slightly paranoid about big brother watching me, but can the police or insurance company watch me without me knowing or must I activate it first through a phone call.

 

It would be possible for them to watch you without you knowing. Don't worry though as it would be an infringment of your human rights and anything they gained on you would not be admissible in court, I presume you have nothing to hide :-)

[Edited by sillysi - 4/22/2002 10:01:24 AM]

 

A 'Tracker' (as in the brand) won't log your location, unless its the Horizon model as its not GPS. Others will. Navtrak store your location and journeys and you can get reports.

As far as I know, there is no reason why the courts/police could not subpoena them to provide the information - there are some clauses in the contract saying it belongs to them and not you (IIRC). Doubtful it would happen, but you never know.

After all, if they could do you without even needing a Gatso as evidence........

 

tracker contacted me to see if my car had been moved as it had come up on there system that it had been moved without de activating the alarm allthough it had not they told me which road it was going on and the speed it had been doing and exactly were it was when I was speeking to them

 

Any 'always active' GPS system (RAC Trackstar, Tracker GPS, NavTrack) could, in practice, provide information to an authority as to the movements of said car. There would have to be some form of Crown Court injunction to get the data as this is similar to the Police requesting mobile phone calls and text messages (in fact the cell movement info you could get from a phone is very similar, if not as accurate, as the GPS tracks. They can show movement from cell, or micro-cell, to cell quite easily).

There is very little chance that a conviction for speeding for arguements sake would stand based on this. However if there was a major incident that required the movement of a suspect from his car Tracker (not that Osama Bin Laden would have one ) then it would be possible for them to gain and use this information.

So, in theory; yes it is possible. Would you ever come across this situation, very, very unlikely. (Unless you are Mr Bin Laden of course)

Neil
Sussex