“There’s a tracker on my car” – NSW’s new covert stalking law and what it means if police come to you

Most people who put a GPS tracker on someone’s car do not think of themselves as criminals. They think of themselves as worried – worried about a partner they no longer trust, an ex who has moved on, a person they believe is hiding something. The tracker feels like information, not crime. But in NSW, the law has always said otherwise. And in May 2026, the NSW Government introduced legislation that closes the most significant loophole that previously allowed covert tracking to go unprosecuted: the requirement that the victim actually know they were being monitored before a stalking charge could stick.

The Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026, introduced into NSW Parliament on 5 May 2026, creates a new offence of covert stalking. It also expands who can be charged when tracking is carried out through a third party – including private investigators hired to shadow someone – and introduces a new offence for businesses that promote surveillance devices for unlawful use. If you have placed, used, or arranged for the use of a tracking device on another person, or if someone is now claiming you did, the legal picture has changed materially.

Why this matters right now

The legislation is a direct response to the NSW Crime Commission’s Project Hakea report, released in June 2024. That investigation examined the sale of tracking devices across NSW, obtaining data on more than 5,500 devices sold to around 3,000 customers since January 2023, then cross-referencing those customers against criminal history and police intelligence records.

The findings were stark. Thirty-seven percent of tracking device purchasers were known to police. Twenty-five percent had a history of domestic and family violence. At the time of purchase, 126 customers were active AVO defendants. And between 2010 and 2023, 82 per cent of offenders charged with unlawfully using a tracking device in NSW were doing so in a domestic violence context. Three-quarters of those offenders had started tracking their victim after a separation.

In one case documented by the Commission, a perpetrator used a GPS tracker purchased from a retail store to monitor his wife’s movements in the month before he shot and killed her. The couple had no prior police history. The tracking appeared to form part of a pattern of escalating behaviour leading to the homicide.

Premier Chris Minns said when introducing the bill that the government was treating domestic violence offenders as among the worst criminals in the state. Attorney General Michael Daley said the new offence of covert stalking placed domestic and family violence offenders on the same footing as those charged with break and enter, robbery, and serious drug supply.

What the law already said – and where it fell short

Before the 2026 Bill, NSW already had two relevant offences. The first is section 9 of the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 (NSW), which prohibits a person from knowingly installing, using or maintaining a tracking device to determine the geographical location of a person or object without consent. The maximum penalty is 100 penalty units or five years imprisonment, or both, for an individual, and 500 penalty units for a corporation. Exceptions apply for devices used in accordance with a warrant, under Commonwealth law, or ‘for a lawful purpose’ – a phrase courts have not yet thoroughly defined.

The second is section 13 of the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007 (NSW), which makes it an offence to stalk or intimidate another person with the intention of causing that person to fear physical or mental harm. The maximum penalty is five years imprisonment and/or a fine of $5,500. In the Local Court, the maximum is two years imprisonment.

The problem, as Project Hakea made plain, was the gap between these two provisions. Section 9 of the Surveillance Devices Act required consent to have been absent – which it usually was – but prosecutions under that section were rare, with only 96 individuals charged between 2010 and 2023 despite the scale of the conduct. Section 13 of the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act required the victim to actually fear physical or mental harm. But if the tracking was completely covert – if the victim had no idea they were being followed via AirTag, GPS tile, or hardwired device – that fear threshold could not be met. A perpetrator who tracked someone perfectly could avoid the stalking charge entirely, simply because they had been careful enough to conceal what they were doing.

That is the gap the 2026 Bill is designed to close.

The new offence: covert stalking

The Bill inserts a new subsection 13(3) into the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act 2007. It creates an offence of covert stalking – defined as stalking a person in circumstances where that person is unaware of the stalking when it occurs. The offence applies where the accused knew that if the person being stalked had been aware of the conduct, they would likely have felt fear of physical or mental harm to themselves or to someone with whom they have a domestic relationship.

In plain terms: you no longer need the victim to have known they were being tracked. The test is whether, if they had known, fear would likely have resulted. That is an objective assessment of subjective likelihood – and it shifts the balance of the offence significantly toward the prosecution.

The maximum penalty for covert stalking mirrors the existing stalking and intimidation offence: five years imprisonment and/or a fine of $55,000. Because it carries a maximum of five years, it is classified as a serious indictable offence, which opens the door to additional charge combinations – including break and enter with commission of a serious indictable offence – that the Attorney General flagged in the bill’s second reading speech.

Directing someone else to stalk, and promoting illegal surveillance

The Bill also amends the definition of stalking in section 8 of the Act to include directing another person to engage in stalking conduct. If you hire a private investigator to follow your former partner, and it is proven that you knew the conduct would likely cause that person to fear physical or mental harm if they became aware of it, you can be charged as though you had done the stalking yourself.

Project Hakea found that some private investigators and so-called spy stores were actively promoting illegal surveillance services and marketing covert tracking devices in ways that targeted people wanting to monitor intimate partners. The Bill responds with a new offence under the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 for advertising a surveillance device in a manner that encourages its unlawful use. This applies even where the supplier claims to have had no specific intention – the question is whether the advertisement promoted unlawful use. The maximum penalty is five years imprisonment and/or a fine of $11,000 for an individual, and $55,000 for a corporation.

Who is caught, and what are the exemptions?

One of the most commonly asked questions when this law was announced was what about parents tracking their children? The government has made clear that the new offence is not directed at parents monitoring a child’s social media activity for safety reasons, or following someone on social media out of genuine interest. The covert stalking offence is targeted at conduct that, if known to the victim, would be likely to cause fear of physical or mental harm – parental safety monitoring of a child’s online activity does not satisfy that test in the ordinary case.

What is more uncertain is the range of situations that fall somewhere between obviously criminal surveillance and obviously lawful monitoring. A person who places a tracking tile in a vehicle shared with an estranged partner, believing it to be their property, may find the lawfulness of that conduct contested. Someone who asks a friend to check on another person’s whereabouts, where the friend undertakes surveillance, may now be caught by the direction offence. And anyone who purchased a GPS tracker near or after a separation – given that 75 per cent of DFV tracking commenced post-separation according to Project Hakea – should expect that context to be heavily scrutinised by police.

The existing ‘lawful purpose’ exception under section 9 of the Surveillance Devices Act remains, but courts have not yet given it a settled meaning in the DFV context. The safest reading is that self-protection does not automatically qualify as a lawful purpose for installing a tracker without consent, in the same way that the listening device ‘lawful interests’ exception requires any recording to be reasonably necessary – not merely useful to have.

How police investigate and what evidence they rely on

NSW Police have been increasingly alert to technology-facilitated domestic abuse since at least 2022, when the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Coercive Control) Act 2022 (NSW) signalled a broader shift in how the law treats patterns of controlling behaviour. The tracking device reforms accelerate that shift.

In a tracking device investigation, police are likely to look for purchase records from online retailers or physical stores, device registration or account linkage to the accused, physical evidence of a tracker installed on or in a vehicle, phone application data showing monitoring activity, communications between the accused and third parties about the victim’s movements, and any admissions made in text messages, emails, or in interview. Because many GPS devices sync to phones and apps, the forensic trail is often more accessible than the accused expects.

Police will also look at the domestic context. The relationship between the accused and the victim, whether there is an existing ADVO, any history of prior DFV incidents, and whether a separation had recently occurred are all factors that will shape how police characterise the conduct. A tracker found after a separation, with an existing ADVO in place, will attract a very different investigative response than the same device found with no prior history and a credible innocent explanation.

Do not assume that deleting an app, removing a device, or buying the tracker anonymously ends the legal exposure. Many tracking devices retain cloud history. Retailers and marketplaces retain purchase records. Digital forensics can recover deleted application data. And in cases where the victim has already found and photographed a device, that evidence already exists.

Overlap with AVOs, bail, and other charges

Covert stalking and tracking device cases rarely stand alone. The 2026 Bill also strengthens the existing AVO framework, makes it harder for those accused of serious domestic violence offences to obtain bail, and introduces mandatory electronic monitoring for those who are bailed. That means a person accused of covert stalking may simultaneously face ADVO applications, bail conditions restricting access to electronic devices or certain locations, and potentially charges under the Surveillance Devices Act as well as the domestic violence statute.

Under section 27 of the Crimes (Domestic and Personal Violence) Act, police are required to apply for an ADVO in circumstances where there has been a domestic violence offence. A covert stalking charge, once laid, is likely to trigger a mandatory ADVO application. Breaching an ADVO is itself a separate offence under section 14 of the Act, carrying a maximum of two years imprisonment in the Local Court or, for serious breaches, up to five years in the District Court. The 2026 Bill also strengthens penalties for serious repeat ADVO breaches.

Where the covert monitoring has been used to locate a victim for purposes beyond surveillance – for example, to attend the victim’s new address without permission, send threatening communications, or confront the victim in public – that conduct may give rise to separate intimidation, assault, or carriage service charges. National Criminal Lawyers regularly advises on these overlapping charge scenarios, which can compound significantly if early legal advice is not obtained.

Common misconceptions that get people into worse trouble

The most common misconception is that tracking a vehicle you co-own or jointly use is automatically lawful. Shared ownership of a vehicle does not give one party the right to covertly monitor the other party’s movements, particularly after separation or in circumstances where the other party would fear harm if they knew.

The second misconception is that the victim’s lack of awareness is a defence. Under the new covert stalking provision, that absence of awareness is precisely the conduct being criminalised. The test is not whether the victim knew – it is whether they would have feared harm if they had known.

The third is that removing the device eliminates the legal risk. Project Hakea showed that digital records of tracking activity can persist long after a device is removed or an account deleted. The best time to obtain legal advice is before police make contact, not after.

The fourth is that hiring a private investigator insulates the person giving the instruction from liability. The 2026 Bill directly addresses that: directing another person to engage in stalking conduct is now captured within the definition of stalking itself.

If police contact you about a tracking device or stalking allegation

The right to silence is fundamental in NSW. You are not required to answer police questions, and anything you say can be used against you. This is particularly important in tracking device cases, where early admissions about purchasing or placing a device – even ones that seem entirely innocent to you – can become the foundation of a prosecution narrative.

Before you speak to police, speak to a criminal lawyer. Early legal advice is not about hiding anything. It is about understanding what is actually alleged, what the prosecution would need to prove, and what defences or explanations may be available in your specific circumstances. The lawfulness of a tracking device’s use, the availability of any lawful purpose exception, the domestic context, the relationship between the parties, and the presence or absence of an AVO are all legally significant factors that a lawyer can assess before you commit to any position.

If you are a victim of covert tracking and have found or suspected a device, NSW Police have specialist domestic violence officers trained in this area. You can also contact Legal Aid NSW for support and guidance on your options.

Contact Us

If police have contacted you about a tracking device, a covert stalking allegation, or a related ADVO application, do not wait to get advice. The legal framework in NSW has just changed, and the consequences – including bail conditions, mandatory electronic monitoring, and the serious indictable offence classification of the new covert stalking offence – make early intervention critical.

At National Criminal Lawyers, we regularly advise on domestic violence allegations, AVO proceedings, surveillance device offences, and the increasingly complex landscape of technology-facilitated charges. We understand how these cases are built, what police rely on, and where defences live.

Call us at 1800 CRIM LAW for a free consultation. Help us help you understand your situation and get you the best outcome possible.