Is It Illegal to Put a Tracker on Someone’s Car in Florida? The Milner, Georgia, Police Resignations

Milner, Georgia’s police chief and all of its full-time officers turned in their resignations in October, and the detail in the headlines is an alleged tracker on the chief’s truck. The city administrator announced the resignations at the October 19 city council meeting, along with her own.

In Florida, tracking someone without consent has been a felony since October 1, 2024. Before then it was a second-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to 60 days in jail, and it covered only installing a tracker, not placing one or using one to follow someone.

What Happened in Milner

WSB-TV reported on October 21 that Police Chief Lamar Bunn and the department’s full-time officers had submitted resignations, and that the department’s last day was set for October 28. Police1 put Milner’s population at 772 in the 2020 census and, citing a FOX 5 report, the full-time force at five officers. City Administrator Tausha Grose announced her own resignation at the same meeting, with her last day set for October 30. Some outlets call her job city manager.

A resignation letter WSB-TV got under the Georgia Open Records Act cited concerns about the “judgment and decision-making of the Mayor and certain members of the City Council concerning the Police Department.” The officer said he was particularly troubled by an allegation that Mayor Craig Timmons used his own money to put a tracking device on Bunn’s truck, WSB-TV reported, and Police1 reported that the allegation was in that officer’s resignation letter. Limits on off-duty work were also a factor in his decision to leave, according to WSB-TV. Grose and Bunn both rejected the suggestion that a dispute over officers’ outside work was why they left, CBS News Atlanta reported.

Bunn raised the tracker himself at the meeting. Fox News Digital quoted him saying it “was bought with personal funds and placed on my vehicle” without the council or his supervisor knowing. He told WSB-TV he’d consulted an outside agency about whether the tracker violated the law or his rights. Bunn also told the station that the mayor had asked him for it back in front of several people while shaking his hand. He said he doesn’t object to the city tracking his truck through proper channels.

When someone at the meeting asked whether a tracking device had been put on the chief’s truck, and whether the mayor was responsible, Timmons said, “I have no comment,” according to WSB-TV. Barnesville.com, the local paper, reported that he wouldn’t say whether he put it there, and quoted him: “There are things that can’t be said.” Councilman Ryan Lewis said it was his understanding that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is looking into the tracker allegations, the paper reported. A police captain’s resignation letter asked for an independent investigation into the mayor’s conduct, Fox News Digital reported.

Barnesville.com also reported signs from both sides, as the meeting closed, that there was room to negotiate and to withdraw the resignations. Asked whether he’d reconsider leaving if circumstances changed, Bunn said he believes people can be reasonable and work things out, WSB-TV reported. Atlanta News First reported that the Lamar County Sheriff’s Office is expected to cover the town. The council’s next scheduled meeting is November 16, according to CBS News Atlanta. As of October 25, no outlet had reported charges or findings, and the mayor hadn’t publicly confirmed or denied the account. All of it comes from the chief, the officers’ letters and the outlets named. A resignation letter isn’t a finding.

What Florida’s Tracking Law Prohibits

Section 934.425(2) has two parts. Unless an exception in subsection (4) applies, “a person may not knowingly: (a) Install or place a tracking device or tracking application on another person’s property without that person’s consent; or (b) Use a tracking device or tracking application to determine the location or movement of another person or another person’s property without that person’s consent.”

“Knowingly” is the state of mind the prosecution has to prove. It’s about what the person knew when they acted. Under subsection (1), a “tracking device” is “any device whose primary purpose is to reveal its location or movement by the transmission of electronic signals.” A “tracking application” is “any software program whose primary purpose is to track or identify the location or movement of an individual.” Under subsection (1)(d), a “person” is “an individual but does not include a business entity.” A business entity is “any form of corporation, partnership, association, cooperative, joint venture, business trust, or sole proprietorship that conducts business in this state.”

The statute doesn’t name any product. Whether a particular tag, phone feature or app fits turns on its “primary purpose,” and that’s a factual question about the specific device or software.

Why Ownership Matters Under Florida’s Statute

The reports don’t agree on whose truck it was. Atlanta News First reported that Bunn accused the mayor of placing a tracker on his personal truck. Barnesville.com called it Bunn’s police vehicle.

Florida’s statute treats ownership differently in its two parts. The installing part, (2)(a), is about “another person’s property,” and a person under the statute is an individual. The using part, (2)(b), reaches anyone who uses a tracker “to determine the location or movement of another person,” so its text doesn’t turn on who owns the vehicle. A tracker reports where the driver goes, whoever holds the title.

Two exceptions in subsection (4) turn on ownership and purpose. Paragraph (h) exempts “an owner or lessee of a motor vehicle that installs, places, or uses, or directs the installation, placement, or use of,” a tracker on that vehicle while they own or lease it. It comes with conditions about removing the tracker before the title transfers or the lease ends. Paragraph (g) exempts “a person acting in good faith on behalf of a business entity for a legitimate business purpose.” The statute doesn’t define “owner,” and it doesn’t say whether a city counts as a business entity.

In a Florida tracking case, then, the first questions you’d ask are who owns the vehicle and whether an exception like (g) or (h) applies. No outlet has reported a finding by any court or agency about the Milner tracker, and any legal question about it is one of Georgia law, which this post doesn’t cover.

When Consent Is Presumed Revoked

Consent runs through the whole statute, and subsection (3) says when it ends. It’s “presumed to be revoked,” which means the law starts from the assumption that it’s been withdrawn, in two situations. The first is when the two people are married and one of them files a petition for dissolution of marriage, the paperwork that starts a divorce. The second is when either one files for an injunction for protection, a civil court order many folks call a restraining order. The injunctions listed are those under section 741.30 (domestic violence), section 741.315 (protection orders from courts outside Florida), section 784.046 (repeat, sexual or dating violence) and section 784.0485 (stalking).

Many couples share their locations on their phones, or keep a tracker on the family car that everybody knows about. Once a divorce or injunction petition is filed, the law presumes the earlier yes is gone, whether or not anybody’s said a word about the tracker. Other exceptions can still apply. Paragraph (h), for example, covers the owner or lessee of the car.

I explain how those orders work, and what the person on the receiving end can do, on my pages about domestic violence injunctions in Florida and stalking and cyberstalking injunctions.

Who the Law Exempts

Subsection (4) says the section doesn’t apply to:

• a law enforcement officer or agency that “lawfully installs, places, or uses” a tracker “as part of a criminal investigation”;
• Department of Corrections officers and staff who lawfully track a person in their care, custody or control in the course of their job;
• Department of Juvenile Justice probation officers and program staff, on the same terms;
• a person authorized by a court order;
• a parent or legal guardian tracking a minor child’s property, if the parents are married and living together and either one consents, the parent is the sole surviving parent, the parent has sole custody, or the parents live apart and both consent;
• a caregiver of an elderly person or disabled adult, if that person’s treating physician certifies that the tracking is necessary for their safety;
• a person acting in good faith for a business entity for a legitimate business purpose, which doesn’t cover a private investigator working for someone else unless the client would’ve been exempt; and
• the owner or lessee of a vehicle, while they own or lease it, under the removal conditions in paragraph (h).

The corrections, juvenile justice and court-order exceptions came from chapter 2025-81, Laws of Florida, effective July 1, 2025. Since 2015, when chapter 2015-137 created section 934.425, installing a tracker in violation of it has also been grounds to discipline a license holder under chapter 493, which licenses private investigators. That ground is section 493.6118(1)(y). Chapter 2024-114, the 2024 law that made tracking a felony, widened it from installing a tracker to installing, placing or using one.

The Penalty, and How It Got Here

Under section 934.425(5)(a), a violation is a felony of the third degree. That’s punishable by up to five years in prison under section 775.082(3)(e) and a fine of up to $5,000 under section 775.083(1)(c). The statute also allows sentencing under section 775.084, so someone sentenced as a habitual felony offender can face up to 10 years.

Under (5)(b), it’s a felony of the second degree, with up to 15 years and a $10,000 fine, or up to 30 years for a habitual felony offender, when someone violates the section “to commit a dangerous crime or to facilitate the commission of a dangerous crime as defined in s. 907.041(5)(a).” Section 907.041 is Florida’s pretrial detention statute, and its list of dangerous crimes includes aggravated assault, aggravated battery, kidnapping, “Stalking and aggravated stalking” (item 17), an “Act of domestic violence as defined in s. 741.28” (item 18), extortion and written threats to kill, among others.

The statute’s been amended three times since 2024. Before October 1, 2024, it said only that a person “may not knowingly install a tracking device or tracking application on another person’s property without the other person’s consent.” A violation was a misdemeanor of the second degree, punishable by up to 60 days in jail under section 775.082(4)(b) and a $500 fine under section 775.083(1)(e). Chapter 2024-114, effective October 1, 2024, added placing and using a tracker and made it a third-degree felony. Chapter 2025-81 added the three new exceptions effective July 1, 2025, and chapter 2025-71 added the second-degree version effective October 1, 2025.

How a Tracking Charge Travels With Stalking

A tracking count can be charged alongside stalking. In Parker v. State, No. 2D19-2013 (Fla. 2d DCA Dec. 11, 2020), a Manatee County case decided by Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal, the defendant had pleaded no contest “to stalking and installation of a tracking device.” That tracking count fell under the 2016 version of section 934.425, when it was still a misdemeanor. A no contest plea doesn’t admit guilt, but it doesn’t fight the charge either. The appeal was about a later probation search of his phone. The court accepted the State’s point that “two GPS tracking devices had previously been found on the victim’s vehicle,” and upheld the search. It didn’t interpret section 934.425.

Stalking under section 784.048(2) means willfully, maliciously and repeatedly following, harassing or cyberstalking another person. It’s a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail under section 775.082(4)(a). To “harass” means “to engage in a course of conduct directed at a specific person which causes substantial emotional distress to that person and serves no legitimate purpose.” A course of conduct is “a pattern of conduct composed of a series of acts over a period of time, however short, which evidences a continuity of purpose.” The stalking statute doesn’t mention tracking devices, but tracking evidence can come in as one of the acts in the alleged course of conduct.

Aggravated stalking is a third-degree felony. Under subsection (3), it’s stalking plus a credible threat, meaning a threat that puts the person in reasonable fear for their own safety or their family’s, made with the apparent ability to carry it out. Under subsection (4), it’s stalking someone after an injunction for protection, or after any other court order barring conduct toward that person, and there’s no threat requirement. So tracking that continues after an injunction is entered can figure in both the tracking count and an aggravated stalking charge.

If prosecutors allege the tracking was done to commit or facilitate stalking, or an act of domestic violence, the tracking count can be charged as a second-degree felony under (5)(b). The enhancement is written in terms of purpose: the statute asks whether the tracking was done “to commit” or “to facilitate” the other crime. My page on stalking and threat charges in Florida covers the stalking side.

When the Police Do the Tracking

The law enforcement exception covers an officer or agency that tracks “lawfully” and “as part of a criminal investigation.” The rules for police tracking don’t come from this statute. In United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), decided January 23, 2012, the Supreme Court held “that the Government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search’” under the Fourth Amendment, so the Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches applies. The Jeep in Jones was registered to Jones’s wife. The government acknowledged he was its exclusive driver. The Court said that if he wasn’t the owner, he had at least the property rights of a bailee, someone lawfully holding another person’s property.

Florida’s own procedure is section 934.42. An officer may apply to a judge “for an order authorizing or approving the installation and use of a mobile tracking device.” The application has to include the officer’s certification that the information likely to be obtained “is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation,” and once the required statements are in it, the court “shall enter an ex parte order,” meaning an order issued on the officer’s request alone. The statute doesn’t ask for probable cause, the showing a search warrant requires. Subsection (5) says “The standards established by the United States Supreme Court for the installation and monitoring of mobile tracking devices shall apply to the installation and use of any device as authorized by this section.” So after Jones, the defense can ask whether the order, and the showing behind it, met the Fourth Amendment’s standard for a search.

If police tracked a car in your case, I ask for the order, the application behind it and the raw location data. Then I compare what the order allowed with when and where the device actually ran. In Jones, the warrant allowed installation in the District of Columbia within 10 days, and agents installed the device on the 11th day, in Maryland. My page on digital devices and phones in a Florida search covers the related questions about phone location data.

If a Tracker Is Part of Your Case

If you’re facing a tracking charge, or a tracker shows up in your discovery (the evidence the prosecution turns over), these are the points to raise with your lawyer.

1. Who owns the property. The installing part of the statute turns on whose property it is, and the owner and business exceptions turn on who owns the vehicle and why it was tracked.
2. Consent, and when it ended. A shared account, a family phone plan, a company policy or a text saying yes can all bear on consent. Under subsection (3), a divorce petition or an injunction petition between the two people makes the law presume that consent was revoked.
3. The date. The felony version took effect October 1, 2024, and the second-degree version took effect October 1, 2025, so the dates of the tracking decide which version of the law applies.
4. The device itself. The definitions turn on a device’s or an app’s primary purpose, so the make, the model and how it was set up all matter.
5. The data. A tracker’s own records, the account it reported to and the phone that read it can show who placed it, who checked it, and when. That record can cut either way, and you’ll want all of it, not a summary in a report.

I cover the charges and the court orders that can come with a tracker on my pages about stalking and threat charges, stalking injunctions and domestic violence injunctions.

Common Questions

Is it illegal to put a tracker on someone’s car in Florida?

Yes, unless an exception applies. Section 934.425(2), Florida Statutes, makes it a crime to knowingly install or place a tracking device or tracking application on another person’s property without that person’s consent. It’s also a crime to use one to determine the location or movement of another person or their property without consent. The exceptions include law enforcement acting lawfully in a criminal investigation, a court order, certain parents of minor children and the owner or lessee of the vehicle.

Is putting a GPS tracker on someone’s car a felony in Florida?

It is, unless an exception applies. It’s a third-degree felony under section 934.425(5)(a), punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, and up to 10 years for someone sentenced as a habitual felony offender under section 775.084. Under (5)(b), it’s a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 15 years and a $10,000 fine, when the tracking is done to commit or facilitate a dangerous crime listed in section 907.041(5)(a), a list that includes stalking and an act of domestic violence.

Does filing for divorce end consent to tracking in Florida?

Section 934.425(3) says consent is presumed to be revoked when the two people are married and one files a petition for dissolution of marriage against the other. The same presumption applies when either person files for an injunction for protection under section 741.30, 741.315, 784.046 or 784.0485. Other exceptions, like the one for a vehicle’s owner or lessee, can still apply.

Can a parent track a child in Florida?

Yes, though the exception isn’t open-ended. Section 934.425(4)(e) exempts a parent or legal guardian who tracks a minor child’s property in four situations. The parents are married and living together and either one consents, the parent is the sole surviving parent, the parent has sole custody, or the parents live apart and both consent.

Does an AirTag count as a tracking device under Florida law?

The statute doesn’t name any product. It defines a tracking device as “any device whose primary purpose is to reveal its location or movement by the transmission of electronic signals.” A tracking application is “any software program whose primary purpose is to track or identify the location or movement of an individual.” Whether a particular product fits depends on what it’s built to do.

Can police put a GPS tracker on a car in Florida?

In United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), the Supreme Court held that installing a GPS device on a vehicle and using it to monitor the vehicle’s movements is a search under the Fourth Amendment. Florida’s section 934.42 lets an officer apply to a judge for an order authorizing a mobile tracking device, based on a certification that the information is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation, and it says the U.S. Supreme Court’s standards apply.

Was anyone charged in the Milner, Georgia, tracker allegation?

As of October 25, 2026, no outlet had reported charges or findings. The mayor said “I have no comment” when he was asked about the tracker at the October 19 council meeting, WSB-TV reported. The allegation comes from the police chief and an officer’s resignation letter.

Further Reading

1. Milner, Georgia, police chief and full department resign over mayor, Fox News Digital, October 22, 2026
2. Entire full-time police department resigns in Milner amid dispute with city leaders, CBS News Atlanta, October 21, 2026
3. Entire Ga. PD resigns; officer alleges mayor put tracker on police chief’s vehicle, Police1, October 21, 2026
4. Georgia city’s entire police force resigns, Atlanta News First on WALB, October 21, 2026
5. Entire police force, city administrator resigns in Georgia city, WSB-TV, October 21, 2026
6. Milner city administrator, police chief and most of his force have resigned, Barnesville.com, October 19, 2026
7. Fla. Stat. 934.425, installation or use of tracking devices or tracking applications, Florida Senate
8. Fla. Stat. 934.425 (2023), the misdemeanor version in effect before October 1, 2024, Florida Senate
9. Chapter 2024-114, Laws of Florida (CS/SB 758), Florida Department of State
10. Chapter 2025-71, Laws of Florida (CS/SB 1168), Florida Department of State
11. Chapter 2025-81, Laws of Florida (CS/CS/HB 903), Florida Department of State
12. Fla. Stat. 907.041, pretrial detention and the dangerous crime list, Florida Senate
13. Fla. Stat. 784.048, stalking, Florida Senate
14. Fla. Stat. 934.42, mobile tracking device authorization, Florida Senate
15. Fla. Stat. 493.6118, grounds for disciplinary action against chapter 493 licensees, Florida Senate
16. United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012)
17. Parker v. State, No. 2D19-2013 (Fla. 2d DCA Dec. 11, 2020)

This post is general information about Florida law, not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. The authorities discussed are sections 934.425, 934.42, 907.041(5)(a), 784.048, 784.046, 784.0485, 741.30, 741.315, 741.28, 775.082(3) and (4), 775.083(1), 775.084 and 493.6118(1)(y), Florida Statutes (2026), and the 2023 text of section 934.425; chapters 2015-137, 2024-114, 2025-71 and 2025-81, Laws of Florida; United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012); and Parker v. State, No. 2D19-2013 (Fla. 2d DCA Dec. 11, 2020), as of October 25, 2026. Facts about Milner, Georgia, come from reporting by WSB-TV, Police1, Atlanta News First, CBS News Atlanta, Fox News Digital and Barnesville.com. They are allegations reported by those outlets, no charges had been reported as of October 25, 2026, and anyone accused of a crime is presumed innocent. This post does not address Georgia law.