Boss GPS tracking employee

[Guest tngw1500se]

My son's boss is playing with him. From what we have figured out, his boss must have got hold of my sons personal Blackberry, and installed a application that reports the phones location to a website. It can be done!!!! This clown caught his wife sleeping with another women (no typo!) and uses this software to track his wife. Since it worked so well on the wife, he's now installed it on the employees personal phones. My son leaves his phone in the truck, so he must have got it and did this. He admits it! It's bull, but my son can't loose his job! Makes me want to go over and have a "heart to heart" with his boss. Ideas? Comments???

[BrasilNuts]

By personal you mean the phone is in your sons name and he pays the bills for it?

Have it uninstalled from the phone and tell your son not to leave his personal phone where anyone can get their hands on it.

[Guest Ae-35]

Simple ,tell your son to have it removed from his phone, and keep it away from his boss. I would do much more ,but jobs are hard to come by now.

[Sean S.]

Remove the software.

[Rightwinger]

Since this was your son's personal phone this is a criminal act. If you can prove it has had a feature added or turned on without his knowledge or permission the boss could possibly be in big trouble. As a former private investigator we were asked to track people all the time and we always replied NO ! It is a state and federal violation. The only folks that can be tracked by a "civilian" for lack of a better word are minor children.

We had guys say they bought the car for their wife's so they wanted to know where the "car" was but even a wife has a expectation of privacy in their movement. I would have the phone checked, get the tech to sign an affidavit stating it is in tracking mode and then seek a an attorney's counsel. This is probably open to both criminal and civil penalty.

[Guest Ae-35]

Uh oh, guess great minds do think alike.

[Guest Grot]

At my old job, this was common.

The difference seems to be it was done on company issued phones, and the employees being tracked were Delivery drivers, delivering product for a major beverage distributor.

If it was a personal phone i agree; attempt to press charges.

[Guest spoolie]

Simple....

Uninstall software....probably "fonehome"

Activate password lock on the phone.

Fixed.

[jgrauman]

theres also an option in google maps, sub app, called google latitude. you sign up with your gmail account and all of your friends, co workers, family do the same. then every time you go into google maps, it will display the locations of everyone who is signed in at the time.

[partypilot1]

Note: Latitude requires that "friends" have to accept the position reporting and they are to receive periodic emails that they are position reporting on the Latitude App

[Jonnin]

Uninstall is so simple. If you guys have any computer know-how, consider instead hacking the software to randomly generate the lat/lon instead. Your boss will be amazed at how you are so productive, able to go to mexio, paris, and tokyo all on your lunch break... The boss cannot as you about it, as that gives him away, all he can do is stew over it.

Its an invastion of privacy: companies CAN do this if the employee is informed of it and signs a paper to waive the right to protest. If it is simply installed without a policy, its grounds for a lawsuit, IMO --- you might have that angle checked out.

[DaveTN]

It's bull, but my son can't loose his job!

That pretty much says it all right there.

[Guest buttonhook]

ok wait....does the boss show him that he can track him? does he do it while he is standing there beside him? If so he pulling your sons chain....there is a program that people are using to prank other people...it doesn't track the other persons phone. it only shows where the "bosses" phone is at but it can be labled anything. So it could say "joe blow is at 11123 who cares ln" and they are because they are standing beside you! he needs to make sure thats not what is happening. It anything he could install the fake tracking program on his phone and show the "boss" that he can track him as well. maybe the boss will get the hint.........

[Guest tngw1500se]

ok wait....does the boss show him that he can track him? does he do it while he is standing there beside him? If so he pulling your sons chain....there is a program that people are using to prank other people...it doesn't track the other persons phone. it only shows where the "bosses" phone is at but it can be labled anything. So it could say "joe blow is at 11123 who cares ln" and they are because they are standing beside you! he needs to make sure thats not what is happening. It anything he could install the fake tracking program on his phone and show the "boss" that he can track him as well. maybe the boss will get the hint.........

Yes he showed him while they were standing "side by side", but he also knows everywhere my son goes. He also showed my son where everyone else is he's tracking.

Edited December 22, 2010 by tngw1500se

[Guest tngw1500se]

By personal you mean the phone is in your sons name and he pays the bills for it?

Have it uninstalled from the phone and tell your son not to leave his personal phone where anyone can get their hands on it.

Yes "Personal" meaning my son signed the contract and pays the bill. Not a company supplied phone. Boss has nothing to do with phone other than he knows the number.

[Guest buttonhook]

Yes he showed him while they were standing "side by side", but he also knows everywhere my son goes.

He needs to make sure that is the case and that he's not just really messing with him (for sure!!! I've done this with my teen aged daughter she thought I was always tracking her and I was not)....this is very easy to do if other know where he has been or is going. Loose lips sink ships as they say. You can fake it very very easy then your son will unknowingly fill in any blanks in the story!! You just act like you know more than you do, without telling them anything real. You would be surpised how many times they would tell on themselves for things they did that I didn't know about. Sometimes I still do that with my students....but not very often. For example I have a video camera in my classroom (I have signs saying there is "possible video recording in progress" on every door)...it is real and I show them it is real by displaying the video on the tv at the first of the year, but it doesn't record all the time. Since they dont know when it is or is not recording they just dont do anything they dont want to get caught doing. You would be surprised how much non-sense it has stopped. Maybe, just maybe that is the bosses game...who knows. It's prob. a fake more than likley, unless he drives a company car or something.

First, if he did install a program on his personal cell phone I would either uninstall the program from my phone or better yet get a new phone and keep the old one as is, just in case all else fails and a law suit is needed.

Second, I would install the "fake" program on my phone and F*&^ with him for awhile. Everytime I seen him I would show him that I was tracking HIM and recording EVERYWHERE he goes on and off the clock with his PERSONAL cell phone and see how he likes it. I bet he will not and will get the hint. Hopefully, he will either fess up to the fake or stop tracking him and since your son would not be really tracking him no law would be broken. I WOULD MAKE THE BOSS SWEAT IT OUT!!!!

Lastly, if he cant take the (not so subtle) hints then he must hit them with the facts that it is against the law...without threating...He needs to educate the person who did it that it opens them up for a lawsuit/jail time. It might be a good idea to casually bring it up in conversation, but make sure they understand and hear the main point. Unless they are just completly stupid...they will not track anyone else

If that doesn't work he might have to file a formal complaint with the company in writing. which may or may not do any good. but if he wanted to keep that job I would make it the last option before a law suit. I also starts the paper trail for a law suit if needed.

****Make sure he documents all of this (get all of his duck in a row).......he might have to sue them for wrongful termination, invation of privacy, violation of his civil rights, harassment, etc., etc. depending on the company he might not NEED a job when he is done with them.****

No matter what make sure he stays calm and collected and for sure doing what he needs to do where he need to be doing it.

*****I am not a lawyer******

Edited December 22, 2010 by buttonhook

[Guest spoolie]

Don't buy a new phone.

Don't say anything to the boss.

Just uninstall the app/program and put the password lock on the blackberry/iphone.

It's very easy, go into the menu and go to security...go to factory restore...then when rebooted activate the password screen lock.

Problem solved for everyone. Tell your son to not **** off at work and do his job, he will have nothing to worry about.

[Guest buttonhook]

he should not have to lock his personal stuff up just to keep the boss from using it against him......I not saying it's not good advice, but he shouldn't have to do it. I would find out if he was just messing with him. because he could be getting pissed for no reason.

[Guest spoolie]

Well with a password no one can "mess" with him anymore....along with removing whatever was or was not installed. Easy solution without drama. Let whomever think they are still doing whatever. Just go to work do your job and go home. Putting a password keeps info safe and if stolen has to be hacked to access or use the phone. This is a free fix, buying a new phone and causing drama at the work place doesn't make sense to me....pick and choose your battle.

[TGO David]

Don't buy a new phone.

Don't say anything to the boss.

Just uninstall the app/program and put the password lock on the blackberry/iphone.

It's very easy, go into the menu and go to security...go to factory restore...then when rebooted activate the password screen lock.

Problem solved for everyone. Tell your son to not **** off at work and do his job, he will have nothing to worry about.

Meh.

If it's a Blackberry and he has it managed by a BES server at his company in order to receive email and such, they can load apps on it all day long and prevent him from making changes. It's all done via BES policies. We do this with our Blackberries at work, although we don't go installing GPS nanny apps on them either.

A factory reset to the phone will fix the issue, but it will also break his feed of corporate email. Once he reconnects it to their BES server, they can go right back to dropping whatever apps they want onto the phone. So really, it's a legal privacy issue since your son bought and pays for the device. If I were him, I'd demand a new company-provided Blackberry that he can leave at the office or at home (etc) and only carry when he doesn't care about being "tracked".

[Guest spoolie]

I agree, ask for a company supplied phone or just turn his personal phone off during work. When I'm at work I turn mine off and leave it in my locker. But purchasing another phone...out of the question.

[vontar]

Alot like TGO David said, where I work, they company phones are connects to a BES sever. Everyday people ask to connect their personal blackberries to the BES and policy is no, and the company line is, if it is not a company blackberry they can not control it.

Now with what TGO David said, that gives me the backside of the picture that I am now able to see were I work, they probably have access to install and i know monitor certain stuff on the company owned equipment.

Mind you, currently on dial up, did not read every post.

However, back to your sons blackberry, since the boss does not own it, sounds like some laws are being broken to me as well

[BryanP]

Lots of speculation going on. If, as TGO David speculates, your son's personal Blackberry is connected to a company-owned BES server, your son may be out of luck both technically and legally. If that's the case then it's quite possible he agreed to allow the company to do anything they want to his Blackberry.

I don't use a Blackberry, but if the app in question is similar to an Android or iPhone app then maybe he could manually uninstall it and then watch to see if and how long it takes it to reappear.

[TGO David]

My co-workers all thought I was crazy for paying for a personal cell phone since the company happily issues us all smartphones as part of the job. They changed their opinions when someone recently had their call records pulled and evaluated by HR as part of a witch hunt. They were perfectly in the right to do so because it's company property and you understand that you have no expectations of privacy when using company resources.

If I'm not on the clock or on call, my company phone stays on the charger turned off. They know how to reach me on my personal phone if it's an emergency. Otherwise I keep my work and my personal lives completely separate from one another... phones included.

[Rightwinger]

Yep