If you’re trying to keep tabs on your youngster with a brand new license, you can use On-Star’s vehicle location service. If you want to find out where your significant other really is when he says he’s working late, you could sneak an electronic tracer under his auto bumper or hide a cheap device with a “find my phone” feature between the seats.

If you’re an auto insurer or manufacturer trying to calculate your degree of liability in a vehicle accident or an auto safety researcher, you’d want to get your hands on the Electronic Data Recorder, a.k.a. the black box, hidden somewhere inside the dashboard.

All those activities are legal in New Jersey, but not everyone thinks they should be.

Assemblyman John Bramnick, R-Morris, introduced A3747 to make it a fourth-degree crime for a private citizen to use an electronic device to track someone without that person's consent. The bill exempts law enforcement agencies and parents or guardians tracking a minor child, but if they want to know the whereabouts of offspring older than 17, it could be a little dicey.

Assemblyman Paul Moriarty, D-Gloucester, aims to ensure data accumulated by black boxes in vehicles remains the sole property of the vehicle owner. A3579 forbids anyone but the owner to retrieve any information without a search warrant, subpoena or written permission.

Data recorded by the hidden devices has been used to determine the actions of a driver in the minutes before a crash occurs, often refuting what the driver said. Moriarty says such use is an invasion of privacy. He argues that when a person buys a vehicle, she buys everything in it, including the black box and all the data it accumulates.

Thirteen states seem to agree and have enacted laws about EDRs with varying degrees of privacy protection. But while some courts ruled EDRs are not necessarily the private property of the vehicle owner, others disagree. Recently a New York court ruled no warrant is required for an EDR search, but a California court ruled the reverse.

Most car manuals state an EDR is an integral part of the car’s electronic system, but few consumers seem to notice or care.

Although EDRs now are in 95 percent of vehicles and have been in some models for decades, one dealer I spoke with said that in 40 years of selling cars not a single customer has ever inquired about one. He noted that even his service techs don’t know the locations of the EDRs, so they can’t be removed or tampered with.

“Black boxes provide critical safety information that might not otherwise be available to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to evaluate what happened during a crash and what future steps could be taken to save lives and prevent injuries,” said David L. Strickland, NHTSA administrator. He’s pushing for a federal mandate that all cars have one this year.

Moriarty’s bill permits exemptions for auto safety research as long as the identity of the vehicle owner and driver are not made public, and it permits access to data-by-subscription contracts as long as the owner consents. A subscription contract like On-Star can receive real time data and dispatch police and medical responders to the scene of a crash moments after it occurs. Some auto insurers are also offering discounts to drivers who voluntarily install data recorders and permit the insurers to check their driving habits.

Moriarty’s bill was approved by the Assembly Consumer Affairs Committee unanimously in October. Bramnick’s bill, which Moriarty co-sponsors, was referred to the Assembly Judiciary Committee but has not yet been considered.

EDITOR'S NOTE: A former state assemblywoman from Jersey City, Joan Quigley is the president and CEO of the North Hudson Community Action Corp. in Union City. Her column appears in The Jersey Journal every Tuesday.