Digital Debt-Collector: The Growing Use of Private Security GPS Devices as a Condition of ‘Subprime’ Auto Loans

• In Event: Emerging Areas in White-Collar Crime

Abstract

Private security technology represents the largest and fastest growing area of the security industrial complex. Within this field, GPS tracking devices are increasingly marketed to non-state actors. This paper will examine the growing use of GPS tracking and immobilizer devices as a condition of auto and ‘title’ loans to high-risk customers, with poor credit scores. In North America, this represents the fastest growing segment of the auto-lending market. The vast majority of these loans are issued by independent used car dealers and non-bank lenders. Critics have alleged that use of a GPS device violates both state and provincial laws, however, their use remains largely unregulated. This paper will argue that the use of GPS devices is consistent with the growing field of ‘commodified security’; to mitigate the substantial risk associated with these loans, lenders purchase private security as a form of ‘additional security’. It is under these auspices, that the security industry has marketed GPS technology, in response to the growth of the subprime market. For borrowers, who are often unable to access other types of loans, they willingly cede their privacy to lenders in a form of self-imposed ‘remote governance’, as a last resort.

Author

• Julius Haag, University of Toronto