Owning a GPS jammer is in itself not illegal, but using the devices to interfere with signals is a crime, according to the Southeastern Finland Police Department.
Let me preface this by saying I completely agree that there’s a conflict here, but it’s pretty much required in this day and age.
Let’s look at the current situation: Someone buys a tracker for under $100, sticks it to your car, and they can see you wherever you go. It’s scary, because they can know where you are at all times, and there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to figure out who did it.
Now an alternative where GPS trackers are illegal: Someone buys the generic parts for a GPS tracker, sticks it to your car, and they can see you wherever you go. But also legitimate uses for GPS trackers aren’t possible any longer. Say goodbye to things like tiles and air tags, hell maybe even GPS in your phone since you can get an android device with GPS for less than $100 and load it with software to do the tracking. At best you’ve prevented easy tracking with a huge detriment to the average user, at worst you’ve outlawed GPS tech entirely.
The final alternative is allowing jamming. I don’t have a nice story for this one, because the implications are far reaching. Is your jammer too strong? You’re interrupting other people’s GPS in a huge area, including things like navigation, child/pet/item tracking, time sensitive hardware could be using GPS as well, or things checking elevation. Not to mention, jammers can be used for nefarious purposes as well. Kidnapping a child and jamming a tracker on them, stealing a phone/wallet/keys and blocking its ability to report where it is.
There’s no perfect situation here, but the current state is the least harmful to the general population.
Let me preface this by saying I completely agree that there’s a conflict here, but it’s pretty much required in this day and age.
Let’s look at the current situation: Someone buys a tracker for under $100, sticks it to your car, and they can see you wherever you go. It’s scary, because they can know where you are at all times, and there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to figure out who did it.
Now an alternative where GPS trackers are illegal: Someone buys the generic parts for a GPS tracker, sticks it to your car, and they can see you wherever you go. But also legitimate uses for GPS trackers aren’t possible any longer. Say goodbye to things like tiles and air tags, hell maybe even GPS in your phone since you can get an android device with GPS for less than $100 and load it with software to do the tracking. At best you’ve prevented easy tracking with a huge detriment to the average user, at worst you’ve outlawed GPS tech entirely.
The final alternative is allowing jamming. I don’t have a nice story for this one, because the implications are far reaching. Is your jammer too strong? You’re interrupting other people’s GPS in a huge area, including things like navigation, child/pet/item tracking, time sensitive hardware could be using GPS as well, or things checking elevation. Not to mention, jammers can be used for nefarious purposes as well. Kidnapping a child and jamming a tracker on them, stealing a phone/wallet/keys and blocking its ability to report where it is.
There’s no perfect situation here, but the current state is the least harmful to the general population.