GPS Tracking and Privacy and Penal Code Restrictions

Rental Centers are advised that their GPS tracking may not be lawful and indeed violative of both privacy and the California Penal Code. Specifically, California Penal Code Section 637.7 provides that "monitoring" may raise serious issues with regard to California’s constitutional rights to privacy. Knowledge of a person’s activities may be a violation of the California Constitution Right to Privacy, including details of personal life, including doctors’ visits, meetings with an attorney, and attendance of religious services, which would be disclosed to whomever monitors the GPS Tracking device! Therefore, California Penal Code Section 637.7 prohibits any person or entity from using "an electronic tracking device" to determine the location or movement of a person via a vehicle or other movable device (e.g., cellphone). The law allows an exception for vehicles provided there is "written consent" to use of the electronic tracking device with respect to that vehicle. 

Rental centers that utilize "tracking devices" must adhere to California Penal Code Section 637.7, and they must have a written and informed consent to the use of a tracking device both in the signed rental agreement, as well as in the signed employee manual for the business’s employee. The California Rental Association in the future will be modifying the Model Rental Agreement to provide for this informed consent! 

Please telephone me should you have any questions. Thank you. Les Chayo