Anyone else being GPS tracked?

Nurses Recovery

Published

I am in Indiana and a new company just took over our monitoring program. We were sent an email last week that effective immediately we were to start using the GPS tool on our monitoring app to check at a meeting (NA, AA, NSG) and starting soon there would be a check out button as well. How in the world is this legal?? I feel like this is invasion of privacy and so does my counselor! I voluntarily signed up for this crap but I have not given permission to be tracked!

Specializes in Med/Surg & Psych.

What I don't like is when you check in via GPS it clocks you in at the time you check in. I usually would put my meetings in the calendar one week at a time so now I keep forgetting to check in when I arrive and when I do remember I've already been there for 30 to 45 minutes. so if you look at my check-in times it looks like I'm extremely late to the meeting.

And remembering the check out??? I guarantee I'm going to forget almost every time to check out!

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I don't know how IOS works but on android if it's rooted you could set "mock locations" which is basically spoofing your location to an app. I would just go that route and spoof your location to the meetings because **** that s***

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Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.

The GPS on the app doesn't verify that you attended a recovery meeting. It verifies that your PHONE was at that location. And even then, it's not an exact science as a lot of it depends on the signals they get from the sattelites and cell phone towers. It's not uncommon for GPS locations to be off by several blocks. Neverminding that the hackers among us could easily fake a location.

This also doesn't verify who is in possession of your phone at that time or what they were doing, even if they click the "check-in" and "check-out" buttons. My 5-year old is very adept at activating and closing aps, as well as turning off notifications. Who's to say that it's not him playing with my phone at an event that happens to be near the address of the meeting?

IMO, this is way over the top. Plus the fact that there's enough potential holes in this to call it Swiss cheese. They'd do better to go old school and have the meeting coordinator sign an attendance slip for you.

Of course, if my phone happens to be in a recovery program, then this could work just fine. But last I checked, my phone was sober.

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I am in PA and we are now required to use our SMART PHONES to log in meetings attendance. I am also wary of this and feel like it's an invasion of privacy.

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Specializes in ED, Transplant.

Ugh...this is going to be a very long 34 months!

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Wow! :uhoh3:

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Does this eliminate the need for having a sheet signed at every meeting or is this in addition to having a sheet signed?

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Unreal... It has to be signed in blood... blood from a virgin. Lol

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Specializes in Med/Surg & Psych.

this eliminates the sign in sheet ( and I'm grateful for that!)

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Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.

If Im using my personal cell phone then they better be paying for that bill. If not, and for many other reasons, then hell no

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Specializes in Case Manager/Administrator.

I just want to make sure you are being monitored because you have a corrective plan with the nursing board?

My husband's company does GPS for governmental vehicles and phones. I would under no situation allow this type of monitoring even if it meant I had to come in more.

I would do the following immediately

1. Get a new phone number and tell the servicing agency who is monitoring you I have no phone.

2. I would set up a new email specifically for this servicing agency and use it exclusively for them only.

Please keep in mind not all people in this world has cell phones and it is becoming even more popular to reduce life stressors and this is certainly one of them to enhance your recovery. Then I would ask how can we proceed without me having a cell phone as this is not an option for me.

Just a little note of experience: We are retired military and have lived all over the world. Before the wall came down and the East opened I took a trip to Prague CZ with a girlfriend. At the border we had to surrender our passports and we were followed everywhere we went. It was scary to us and we stayed in very public places. I was never so glad to return back to Germany. Reading this brought up those feeling from such a long time ago and it is happening here. So sad.

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I would say no and others that feel the same should make their voices heard, like you have. Thanks for sharing.

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