INDIANAPOLIS — A bill that would make it a crime to follow someone with a remote tracking device without them knowing about it is moving through the Indiana Senate.
The author of Senate Bill 161, Sen. Michael Crider, R-Greenfield, said he wrote it after learning that cases of people using these devices to stalk someone were on the rise.
“He had access every single time I started my car,” Millie Parke told lawmakers Tuesday. She recounted the day she almost died two years ago when her ex-boyfriend, who she had a protective order against, stabbed her in the heart.
“The horror in that moment is just unfathomable. You cannot even imagine,” Parke told lawmakers on the Senate’s Corrections and Criminal Law Committee.
Parke explained how her ex was able to find her because he’d installed a tracking device on her car without her knowing it.
“It put every person I went to stay with, it put every person I had contact with, in danger,” Parke said.
That’s why Parke said she was there to support Senate Bill 161, which would make it a crime to follow someone with a tracking device without them knowing it.
The proposed law would also make it an even more serious crime if that person had a protective order against the person tracking them.
A suspect would face an even longer prison sentence if they used the tracking device to find someone and then commit a felony.
“We also need to work on the companies that market these devices and allow just individuals to purchase them,” said Parke.
Under SB 161, vehicle manufacturers that install tracking and GPS devices in newer model cars and trucks, would be excluded from prosecution.
Crider said the bill needed more work to address whether private investigators should be able to use the devices. Also to consider is whether family members who track someone, like a parent with dementia, could also do so without fear of getting in trouble.
“This is pretty complicated when you get down to all the variables that might exist,” Crider said.
For Parke, it’s very simple. She believes she’s living proof that Hoosiers need more protection from being stalked using a tracking device.
“I’ll keep telling my story until things get changed,” Parke said.
The bill passed out of the committee by a unanimous vote and now heads to the full Senate where more changes can be made.