Soap Opera Drama Via GPS

Viewers of television dramas often express relief that their real lives bear little resemblance to what they see unfolding on the screen. Secrets, lies, and scandals might make for good TV, but they aren’t as welcome in the real world. The trouble with such complications is precisely that they are secret, kept hidden for months or years until they explode, destroying families and lives in the process. For better or worse, GPS tracking now plays an important part in triggering many of these explosions.

The Suspicious Spouse’s Best Friend

Husbands and wives have long wondered just what their spouses were doing when they took that unexpected business trip, late night project at work, or long lunch break. But until now, it has not been possible for a suspicious spouse to follow along in secret. Now that GPS tracking devices are small enough to be hidden on a vehicle without being noticed, a wife can keep tabs on her husband’s unusual trip while she enjoys her morning coffee in the kitchen.

In Plant City, Florida, a husband called on GPS technology for assistance when he became aware of rumors that would have been more at home in a soap opera than in real life. His friends claimed that an affair was underway between his wife and the town’s police chief, and in order to verify the claim, he tagged the family car with a small tracker just before his wife left town.

To the husband’s dismay, the tracking signal showed that his wife was driving the opposite direction from the destination she had claimed. At the end of the long saga, the husband confirmed the rumors, confronted the two unfaithful spouses, and reported the affair to city officials in order to get the police chief fired. The attempt succeeded because the chief had conducted the affair during time on the city’s payroll.

Moral Objections?

We would have clear moral objections to a company or the government secretly tracking our location to find out if we were doing something wrong. George Orwell’s spine-tingling novel 1984 permanently spooked Americans concerning official surveillance, and any allegations of it instantly trigger firestorms in the media. But the situation is different where spouses are concerned.

There have been lawsuits brought by unfaithful spouses who were ratted out by secret GPS tracking. These claims stand on very shaky legal ground, however, primarily because the law sees married couples as single entities for most purposes. If a husband and a wife jointly own a car, for example, one of the spouses may legally install a tracker on it without informing the other. Here are a few situations, though, that would not be legal:

• A private investigator hired to follow someone installs a tracker on his car


• A woman installs a tracker on her divorced husband’s car


• A husband installs a tracker on the car of another man he suspects of having an affair with his wife


• Police use secret tracking to help a husband or wife track their spouse

In most cases, a cheating husband claiming that his wife violated his privacy by tracking him without his knowledge will not gain much sympathy from the legal system. The courts expect spouses to give up most privacy rights within their relationships, and that includes knowing where the other person is at any given time.

Love it or Hate It

It will be interesting to see what effects GPS tracking has on marriages across the country. Will spouses be deterred from starting affairs if they know that it is easy for their husband or wife to follow them around on their computer screen? That would undoubtedly be positive for society, but past knowledge of human nature suggests something different. The more likely result is that people will devise elaborate methods for avoiding and sabotaging GPS tracking devices. GPS jammers are already accessible and inexpensive, although federal law may soon catch up and outlaw them. Simpler approaches, such as switching cars or inventing stories that explain unexpected travel patterns, will probably be preferred by most cheaters.

The Park City, Florida case did not end well for anyone involved. The fired police chief ended up losing everything—even the woman in his affair abandoned him when she realized he was more worried about the status of his job than about the relationships in his life that were damaged by the situation. As tragic and painful as the story ended up, it is important to remember that GPS tracking was not the cause of the trouble, but merely the messenger that brought it to light. In happier scenarios, GPS may be able to end an affair as soon as it begins, or better yet, before it begins at all. Spouses across the nation will certainly be thankful if this technology allows them to keep soap-opera style drama out of their lives.

Soap Opera Drama Via GPS