Company Car GPS Tracking: What's Legal and How to Set It Up
As a business owner or fleet manager, you have undoubtedly dealt with some stressful incidents involving your employees and company vehicles. Maybe one of your newest drivers got into a fender-bender. Perhaps a customer claimed they were overbilled because the driver arrived later than what your records show. And what about that time you saw one of your vans parked on a random city street at 11 p.m.?
You know that a GPS tracking platform is the solution to all of these problems. But then a question enters your mind and stops you in your tracks.
Is GPS tracking employees legal?
It’s a good question. You’ve seen headlines about privacy lawsuits and heard that gaining employee consent is a minefield of potential legal issues. You searched law firm blogs and hardware vendor FAQs for a straightforward answer, only to walk away more unsure.
If any of this sounds familiar, this is the article for you. Company car GPS tracking is legal in the US, but you have to go about it the right way. Below, we'll take a look at what's legal, what's not, and how to set up company car GPS tracking that protects both your business and your employees.
Is Company Car GPS Tracking Legal? The Short Answer
So, the short answer is that in the US, using GPS to track and monitor company vehicles is legal in all 50 states. Of course, the law is complex, so there’s a longer answer, but in general, a company’s owner or authorized representative (such as a fleet manager or dispatcher) can legally track their fleet, as long as they do so for a legitimate, definable business purpose.
Where the complexity comes in is the interplay of different jurisdictions: federal, state, and local. (While it’s unlikely that your county or municipal governments have local laws regulating GPS tracking, some large metropolitan cities might. Check if you’re unsure.)
Federal law is the broadest jurisdiction, as it applies nationwide. While there are no federal laws specifically addressing GPS tracking, several Constitutional principles, fundamental property rights, and broader electronic privacy statutes apply. The sum total of these considerations is that when an employee operates a vehicle they do not personally own, especially during their clocked-in work hours, they do so with a lowered expectation of privacy. Employers are well within their rights to monitor and protect their property from misuse, theft, or damage.
Since federal principles apply nationwide, they can serve as the foundation for your fleet GPS tracking policy. Just make sure all of these conditions apply, all the time:
- Any vehicle you track must legally be company property.
- Employees operating a tracked vehicle must be aware of the tracking system's presence.
- The tracking must serve an articulable, legitimate business purpose, such as optimizing daily routing, ensuring driver safety, managing vehicle maintenance, or recovering your property in the event of theft.
How Company Car GPS Tracking Laws Change by State
Perhaps the most important jurisdiction to be concerned about is state law. Many states have adopted specific employee GPS tracking consent laws. The requirements can vary from state to state, and if your drivers travel across state lines, you must follow the rules of every state they enter. When more than one state applies, the safest approach is to comply with the strictest one. The various laws fall into three categories, which are written-notice states, explicit-consent states, and no-specific-statute states.
States That Require Written Notice
Some states, with Connecticut, Delaware, and New York chief among them, have passed legislation requiring upfront disclosure of any electronic monitoring in the workplace. As a persistent form of electronic monitoring, GPS tracking is covered by these laws. In these states, employees must receive advance written notice before you can place a GPS tracker in the vehicles they drive for your company.
This means you’ll need a signature from each employee that drives a tracked vehicle, acknowledging that they have been informed of your tracking policy. While these laws are fairly strict about the need for a signed written notice, this doesn’t mean that employees can refuse to sign and expect to continue using the vehicle or maintain their employment. It simply means you need written documentation before you can start tracking.
States That Require Explicit Consent
California has adopted what are perhaps the strictest employee privacy laws in the nation. To comply, you must obtain well-documented, affirmative agreements from your workforce, even when tracking a vehicle your company owns and maintains.
The bulk of the conditions that employers must follow when monitoring employees can be found in California Penal Code 637.7 and the state's digital license plate law, AB 984, which includes provisions on GPS tracking and employee privacy. It is worth noting that California is also a two-party consent state for recorded communications, so if your tracking program ever pairs GPS with in-cab audio or video, every party must consent. However, there might be other statutes that apply to your business.
Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, and Virginia have also adopted employee privacy regulations that require explicit consent, although most are not as stringent as California’s laws. In any of these states, you must limit tracking to official work hours and be able to show it is necessary for employee safety or a specific business purpose, even after you have obtained explicit consent.
To meet the heightened requirements in California and other explicit-consent states, don’t bury the language in a broad vehicle-use policy or an employee handbook. Prepare a specific document outlining what you track, how you track it, and when you track it to ensure compliance.
States With No GPS-Specific Statute
Finally, there are the states with no GPS-specific laws on the books. This is actually the vast majority of the states in the US. While this may sound like it gives you, as an employer, a lot of leeway, a lack of GPS-specific statutes doesn’t exactly create a legal vacuum. General state privacy, anti-stalking, and workplace harassment laws still apply if you use tracking the wrong way.
Plus, a lack of laws on the books in your state today doesn't guarantee there won’t ever be any. As company car GPS tracking becomes more commonplace, it’s easy to envision a future where all 50 states pass employer regulations. And remember that if your employees drive to other states, the laws of those jurisdictions apply.
The best way to handle this potential risk is to craft your fleet GPS tracking policy around the laws of the most regulated states. This approach is an effective hedge against future, stricter state legislation and successfully prevents severe employee-relations blowback and mistrust.
The Personal Vehicle Trap: Why a Company Policy Isn't Enough
If you run a service business, like HVAC or plumbing, or manage a municipal utilities fleet, your employees most likely drive company vehicles to job sites. But if you have a business that employs, for example, regional sales reps, traveling home health aides, or other remote field personnel, there’s a good chance that they drive their personal vehicles for work purposes.
As you might expect, tracking personal vehicles is much more legally complex because you risk invading employees' privacy during off-hours. To stay on the right side of the law, start with a personal vehicle policy that follows the explicit-consent guidelines, even if your business operates entirely in a jurisdiction with no specific GPS statutes. You also need a tracking platform or app that can be configured to monitor only employees and collect location data during clocked-in, verifiable work hours.
If this combination of well-documented employee consent and a flexible tracking system isn’t possible, you should consider providing company-owned vehicles for these employees. Gaining ownership of the vehicle in question may entail upfront costs, but it eliminates the personal privacy concerns. A far greater expense would be a lawsuit by a former employee who says they were wrongfully terminated because you tracked them off-hours and didn’t like what you saw.
Setting Up Company Car GPS Tracking: A Step-by-Step Rollout
Once you understand the consent laws that apply to you, you can roll out tracking on a solid legal footing. The six steps below take you from listing your vehicles through ongoing legal review, and the documentation groundwork is realistic to complete within a week. Here is the process for rolling out your tracking program without opening yourself up to unnecessary liability.
Step 1: List Your Fleet Vehicles and Reasons for Tracking
To get started, make a list of your company-owned or company-leased vehicles. For each one on the list, write down the specific business reason for tracking it. Some legitimate reasons include maintaining efficient daily routing, ensuring driver safety, scheduling preventive maintenance, or aiding law enforcement in the event of a theft.
Step 2: Check State Laws and Draft a Policy
Determine whether your business operations fall under notice, explicit consent, or no-statute requirements based on where your vehicles travel (not just where your company is headquartered). Use these guidelines to draft a standalone fleet GPS tracking policy. Don’t bury your policy in another document or the employee handbook to ensure maximum compliance.
Step 3: Decide on Your Tracking Scope
Do you need to track company vehicles only during work hours? Or is 24/7 coverage necessary? Make this and other scope decisions based on business needs. You can also consider asset values in this decision, since a more expensive car parked overnight in unlit areas and a standard delivery van solely used on day-shift routes call for different levels of tracking.
Just remember that if you choose 24/7 tracking, you must meticulously document the exact business justification, such as the absolute necessity of after-hours vehicle recovery.
Step 4: Collect Employee Signatures
Before proceeding to tracking drivers, have all affected employees sign the appropriate documents, either a notice of tracking or one giving explicit consent, depending on the jurisdictions you do business in. Store all signed documents in employee personnel files for safekeeping.
Step 5: Install the GPS Tracking Devices, Test, and Configure
Now you can install the GPS tracking devices in your vehicles. You might start with a test group to evaluate the functionality. In particular, check the platform’s data retention policies to ensure they align with the laws in your state. Implement strong access controls so that only approved personnel (e.g., fleet managers, dispatchers, HR) can view sensitive location data. Many fleet tracking services also offer no activation fees, no contracts, and lifetime support, which can simplify rollout.
Step 6: Review the Laws Regularly
Set a recurring reminder to check for changes to your state’s privacy laws. When necessary, revise your policies and have all affected employees sign the new versions. Make other changes based on the employee feedback you receive to ensure tracking remains transparent and business-focused.
Bonus: Mistakes to Avoid
Following the above six steps will help reduce your legal liability, but you should also avoid the following:
- Relying on employee handbook boilerplate text instead of utilizing a dedicated, standalone acknowledgment form.
- Attempting to secretly track an employee's personal vehicle under a loose policy designed for company vehicles.
- Tracking employees during off-duty hours without a valid business reason.
- Not implementing detailed policies because you operate in a "no specific GPS statutes" state.
Company Car GPS Tracking FAQ
Is it legal to put a GPS tracker on a company car?
Yes. In all 50 states, a business can track vehicles it owns when the tracking serves a legitimate, definable business purpose and drivers are aware of it.
Do I need employee consent to track a company vehicle?
It depends on your state. Some states require only advance written notice, some require explicit signed consent, and many have no GPS-specific statute, though general privacy laws still apply.
Can I track an employee's personal vehicle?
Only with explicit, documented consent and tracking limited to verifiable work hours. Many businesses avoid the risk entirely by providing company-owned vehicles.
How Bouncie Supports a Compliant Rollout
You can have a team of attorneys at your side and know the laws of your state forward and back, but it's all for naught if you don’t have a GPS tracking system designed with legal compliance in mind. That’s why you should get to know Bouncie.
Whereas other tracking platforms ship with complex software and require time-consuming hardwired installations, Bouncie is an OBD-II GPS tracker that plugs into the standard diagnostic port built into every car and light truck sold in the US since 1996. Its companion app runs on your smartphone or on any modern web browser. This means installation and activation are quick for each vehicle in your fleet, freeing you up to build a solid legal foundation. The intuitive per-vehicle setup process also ensures you stay focused on company assets and avoid the personal vehicle trap.
Bouncie’s rich feature set also supports legal compliance. For example, its Geo-Zones and detailed trip history logs are just the tools you need to prove you are tracking employees for legitimate business purposes only. With its focus on routing optimization and driver safety, GPS tracking is about business, not arbitrary surveillance.
Company Car GPS Tracking Done Right
With federal, state, and local jurisdictions to consider, staying compliant with the laws governing company car GPS tracking can seem overwhelming. However, it doesn’t have to be complicated, regardless of the state or states your business operates in. By tracking only the vehicles your company owns, providing transparent notice to employees, and keeping the program tied to business purposes, you can maintain strong legal compliance.
You'll also have the foundation for a strong tracking program. You'll have the tools to avoid the headaches of daily operations and optimize your routes. And when tracking is limited to work activity, telematics can help shift fleet management from reactive to proactive. Bouncie supports both strong legal compliance and strong tracking. To get started, learn more about Bouncie for Fleets.
