In a word, yes.

Nanny Cam, Inc. is a private entity not acting on behalf of the State or Federal government; therefore, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is inapplicable.

GPS surveillance of a babysitter does not constitute an invasion of privacy or other illegal action under New York Law.

New York has no common-law causes of actions regarding privacy rights; therefore, any invasion of privacy claim must arise out of a specific statute or local ordinance.

The only privacy statute in New York, the New York Civil Rights Law, deals solely with the right of publicity, rather than the right of privacy.

The New York eavesdropping statute is also inapplicable to a GPS tracking scenario. The Practice Commentary (an overview of the history of the law and how it has been applied) to the eavesdropping statute notes that “expressly excluded from the ‘electronic communication' definition [is]… (c) A communication transmitted by a “tracking device” such as a “beeper” device which when attached to a person or object will transmit a signal, which may be used to track the movements of the person or object.

While there are no cases dealing with GPS surveillance by employers in New York, there have been related cases in other states. A 2005 Missouri case held that where an employer placed a GPS tracking device on a company car, there was no intrusion upon the employee's “seclusion.”

Regarding the privacy rights of babysitters in general, cases involving surveillance of child care workers (e.g., “Nanny Cam” technology) have primarily involved the admissibility of the camera footage at trial, and to any extent privacy rights were involved, these were criminal cases relating Fourth Amendment issues, not private sector employment or surveillance cases.

It is worth noting that no court faced with a Nanny Cam case has addressed the issue of whether the surveillance constituted a violation of the caregiver's privacy, although a New Jersey court has found that a Nanny Cam recording is not a violation of the N.J. Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act. Moreover, although a California case has held that a babysitter “has a legitimate expectation of privacy in the premises where he or she is babysitting,” courts have stated that engaging in “commercial activity” in the residence indicates the person was merely permitted on the premises and did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy within the residence.