Fleet Management News

Monitoring Employees With GPS Tracking Without Their Knowledge or Consent – Is It Legal?

Managing employees in the field has always been a challenge. How do you know if employees are where they say they are? What if a customer calls to complain that a driver never showed up, but he swears he did. What is a manager to do? Ths is where GPS tracking can offer huge benefits.

But inevitably ethical and legal issues have been raised about gps tracking aka Big Brother in the workplace. Is it OK to monitor an employee with a GPS tracking device without their knowledge or consent?

How far can the state government go in monitoring a mobile employee?

This question will be addressed by a mid-level appeals court in New York very soon in about 6 weeks. The lawsuit was filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) against the state Labor Department, on behalf of a fired state worker whose personal vehicle was being monitored with a GPS tracking device, without his knowledge or consent.

When the street sweepers of Middletown go on their assigned routes, they know their work habits had better be squeaky clean. The City of Middletown, Ohio has been using the FieldLogix fleet tracking system for their street sweepers, solid waste trucks, and snow plows since 2008.

According to fleet manager, Michelle Evans, one of their favorite features is the ability to verify the stops made by their vehicles. Mrs. Evans said, “Sometimes drivers skip assigned stops during their shift in order to avoid the extreme temperatures and FieldLogix fleet tracking keeps them accountable. On the other hand, in heavy snow storms you can plow a street and an hour later it doesn’t look like you’ve been there. When we get complaints all I do is access the History Report or the Asset Activity Report and then I have proof that our drivers are out there doing their jobs.”

Using the fleet tracking system’s activity reports, he quickly realized that his employees were falsifying time sheets. Employees were taking long lunches, leaving early and were not where they were supposed to be during work hours.

But all this changed after installing a fleet tracking system. Once Mr. Contreras had a reliable way to measure his employee’s actual work hours, his overtime costs dropped immediately.

****In fact, his overtime costs dropped by more than 2 hours per man per day with no change in the workload. Based on these calculations, Mr. Contreras paid for the entire first year of the system within the first 18 days. ****

Texting and talking on the phone while driving is very dangerous. We all know this, yet many people continue to do it. The Governors Highway Safety Association combed through a decade’s worth of statistics and research papers about the causes of car crashes, and found that cell phone-related distractions accounted for 15 to 25 percent of crashes, according to PC Mag. The figure is likely even higher since law enforcers might not catch every driver using his cell phone before an accident.

To combat distracted driving, Sprint (NYSE: S) has launched a new app called Sprint Drive First. The app locks your phone when you’re driving over 10 miles per hour, and alerts your parent or spouse when the phone has been locked.

Over 100 GPS fleet tracking systems have been installed in Bergen County-owned vehicles. County officials decided to purchase and install the tracking systems to cut the county”s operating expenses. They predict the system, which has so far cost about $56,000, will save taxpayers in several ways, including fuel, maintenance and man-hour costs.

The $56,000 cost for the tracking system includes the software and installation, plus a $22-per-month, per-vehicle fee. Jo Marie Sacchinelli, coordinator of monitoring and evaluation for the county Department of Public Works, said she didn’t know exactly how much the county would save, but described the system as a “very good return.”

When Interwest Construction Inc. realized one of their trucks had been stolen, they immediately activated the FieldLogix tracking system, which was installed inside the vehicle. Next thing you know, the chase was on

FieldLogix, an industry-leading eco-friendly fleet tracking system, was successfully utilized to recover the missing truck in just a few hours.