Tracking a Vehicle or Tracking a Person

A tracker does not know whether it is following an asset or a human being. That determination comes from how the thing it is attached to is used.

When it is genuinely a vehicle

The van stays on site overnight.

It is shared between drivers and never assigned to one person.

Personal use is prohibited and the prohibition is real rather than written.

Then the location data describes where a company asset is, and the main concerns are proportionality and retention rather than private life.

When it is a person

The vehicle goes home. The record then includes a home address, and by inference a household.

One person drives it consistently, so every journey is attributable.

Personal use is permitted, which is common and is where most enforcement cases arise.

Or it is an app on a phone, which goes everywhere the person goes and is always a person.

In each case the location record is about a human being, and the analysis changes completely.

What changes when it is a person

The legal basis is harder. Legitimate interests still requires a balancing test that now weighs private life rather than asset protection.

The purpose must be tighter. Fleet management justifies knowing where a van is during work; it does not justify knowing where it is at eleven at night.

A pause control stops being optional. If personal use is permitted, the person needs a way to stop the recording for it.

Retention shortens, because a route history of someone's private movements has a much weaker justification than a record of a company asset.

And the information obligation grows, because the person needs to understand something more intrusive.

The pause control specifically

Systems in this category commonly include one — sometimes called a privacy button — allowing the driver to mark a journey as personal.

Regulators have taken its absence seriously. An Italian decision in 2025 turned in part on a company having a pause feature available and choosing not to enable it, leaving workers with no way to limit tracking during personal use.

Which makes this a specific and checkable question: does your system have one, is it switched on, and do people know how to use it?

If personal use is permitted and there is no pause, the deployment is tracking private life by design.

The test to apply

Could this record show where a named person was at a time when they were not working?

If yes, you are tracking a person, whatever the product is called and whatever the tracker is bolted to.

Then design accordingly: tighter purpose, shorter retention, working pause control, and a notice that describes what actually happens.

Check the pause control

Three questions, answerable in ten minutes.

Does the system have one?

Is it enabled? Availability is not activation, and the difference has mattered in enforcement.

Do people know how to use it? An enabled feature nobody was shown is not a control.

Then check the data: are there journeys marked personal in the last month? If none, either nobody drives privately or the control is not working.

A concrete product reference

When translating this principle into a buying test, this implementation prompt provides a concrete workflow reference. Verify the current behaviour in a trial and judge it against the purpose and limits described above.

Independent reference

For an external point of reference, see the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. Its official vehicle and driver information helps keep asset records distinct from conclusions about a person.