Unauthorized Placement of Global Positioning Device; Stalking by Technological Device
Iowa GPS Tracking Law
Location · Other
Iowa makes it a crime to secretly put a GPS tracker on another person or their property to follow their movements without consent or a legitimate purpose. The same 2017 act expanded the stalking law so that repeatedly using phones, cameras, recorders, or GPS devices to locate, listen to, or watch someone without authorization can form a stalking course of conduct.
- Where
- Iowa
- Citation
- Iowa Code 708.11A; Iowa Code 708.11(1)(b), (1)(e)
- Status
- In force
- In force since
- 2017-07-01
- Enforced by
- County attorneys and the Attorney General (criminal prosecution)
- People can sue
- No
- Penalties
- Unauthorized GPS placement is a serious misdemeanor (708.11A(2)). Stalking is a felony or aggravated misdemeanor depending on circumstances (708.11(3)).
- Applies to
- Any person who places a GPS device on another person or an object to track that person's movements without consent and without a legitimate purpose (708.11A(1))
- Any person who repeatedly uses a technological device (phone, computer, camera, recorder, GPS device) to locate, listen to, or watch a person without authorization as part of a stalking course of conduct (708.11(1)(b), (e))
Practices it requires
- Do not place a global positioning device on another person or an object to track that person's movements without consent and without a legitimate purpose.Iowa Code 708.11A(1)
- Repeated unauthorized use of a technological device to locate, listen to, or watch a person counts toward a stalking course of conduct.Iowa Code 708.11(1)(b), (e)
Sources
Checked against these sources on 2026-09-25 by research agent (Claude), primary sources.
Unverified: Effective date 2017-07-01 (2017 Acts ch. 83) inferred from the Iowa Code 3.7 default; the session law was not opened. The attribution of 708.11's technological-device language to 2017 Acts ch. 83 rests on the section history note.
Research reference, not legal advice.