There has been a huge change in social norms, says child and adolescent psychotherapist Colman Noctor<\/a>. \u201cTechnology changes culture … What was deviant is now acceptable and what once was acceptable is now deviant. I always use the example of calling to someone\u2019s house unannounced. It used to be something everyone did and now you\u2019d never do it. You have to text first and give warnings. We can\u2019t underestimate how quickly these things seep into the societal narrative … I didn\u2019t see problems with it until an 18-year-old girl was in therapy with me, and she said her boyfriend tracks her. [I said] \u2018That\u2019s not good.\u2019 But she didn\u2019t see it. \u2018My parents have tracked me since I was 15-years-old. Doesn\u2019t everyone just track everyone?\u2019\u2026 Tracking an intimate partner, which would have seemed dreadfully inappropriate five years ago, has seeped into culture as something almost acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n The Irish Timesput a call out to readers asking how people were using tracking technology and got an array of responses, which we followed up with more in-depth interviews over the phone. A number of people said they shared location-tracking details with older relatives who lived alone and they and their relatives derived a lot of comfort from it. Eoin Licken, an Irish engineer living in France, works with a Belgian company called Zembro that provides location-tracking services designed for people with dementia<\/a>. \u201cWe have some nursing-home customers where you might want to monitor somebody and just know that they\u2019re okay,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can draw what we call a \u2018safety zone\u2019 on the map, and if [they] go outside that safety zone, it then starts sending its location every minute. \u201cMy [93-year-old] mother lives on her own in Dublin, so I would typically have a safety zone around her house, the park, the shops … She walks that daily. But if she went outside that, I click on it … She doesn\u2019t have dementia, so she doesn\u2019t need that. She\u2019s only doing that because she knows I want to test this.\u201d<\/p>\n His mother is a fan of her location-tracking emergency pendant, however. \u201cShe knew somebody who was putting the washing on the line and fell on a cold day and died. She\u2019s very comforted by the fact she knows she can press a button and, in this case, actually talk to one of her children.\u201d<\/p>\n She resisted being tracked in a more detailed fashion inside her home. \u201cWhen I put that to my mum, she said: \u2018Nobody\u2019s tracking me in my house.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n Many people track their teenage children. Ten years ago, Stephen (who didn\u2019t want his full name published) disturbed his teenage son while his son was trying to take his own life. The family, school and the families of his friends rolled in to provide support. Later, Stephen adopted family tracking. \u201cI was working overseas, still am a lot of the time. We were conscious he still needs to live a life. [There was] a little bit of comfort knowing that if he was half an hour late home that he\u2019s in his mate\u2019s house.\u201d<\/p>\n Since then all of his family are on the Apple family-tracking app except for his oldest son, who lives abroad; and his wife, because she has a work phone with a different network provider. <\/p>\n Nowadays his son is healthy and well, but they still use location tracking. \u201cMy wife and family would be having dinner [when I\u2019m out of the country] and she\u2019d go \u2018I wonder what dad\u2019s doing?\u2019 and my daughter would look at her phone and say: \u2018Oh he\u2019s in his apartment.\u2019\u201d He says with a laugh. \u201cSometimes the kids would be ignoring my wife\u2019s calls and I have the capacity to set the alarm off in their phone. When they go, \u2018What?\u2019, I say: \u2018Just answer your mother, will you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n There were other stories like Stephen\u2019s from parents worrying about vulnerable children. Niamh, a mother of teenage girls, says she has location tracking on the phone of the 14-year-old, who often goes missing, but not the phone of the 15-year-old, who is always where she says she will be. \u201cWith my husband,\u201d she quips. \u201cI\u2019d be more inclined to say: \u2018Please don\u2019t tell me where you are.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Noctor understands why a parent would feel a need to monitor a vulnerable child or why an adult child might monitor an elderly parent. But he worries that more widespread use of this technology will change our sense of privacy. \u201cFrom a psychological point of view, we all need our private thoughts,\u201d he says. \u201cWe need our own space. We need our own existence, our true self. But the more we display that, perform that, or broadcast that, the less is the likelihood we will ever gain the advantages of it. Our privacy and even our true self is being basically concealed because we\u2019re performing as these avatars of ourselves.\u201d <\/p>\n It is increasingly common to keep family tracking functioning for college-aged children. Pearl is a 19-year-old college student from Donegal in her second year of university in Dublin. Her parents have tracked her phone since she was a young teenager and continue to do so. \u201cAs a teenager I despised the idea of my parents knowing where I was [but] I just grew to like the idea … When I\u2019m walking back from college to my apartment, because I live in town, and it\u2019s not the best of areas. I just know, well, my parents have my location. It really is like two guardian angels … If I was without my phone, I probably would be a bit like, \u2018okay, I\u2019m definitely by myself here. If anything goes wrong, it\u2019s just me.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n \u2018I can\u2019t really imagine being 30 years old and having my parents have my location\u2019<\/p>\n Does she ever worry about her parents judging her activities? \u201cIf I was out too late, I wouldn\u2019t think, \u2018oh God, I better get home because my mum or dad\u2019s going to see my location\u2019 … It\u2019s more Dad [might say] I should probably go to the library early tomorrow morning and it\u2019s 11 o\u2019clock and I\u2019m still in my apartment. I\u2019ll wonder if he\u2019s [looking] at my location and thinking to himself, \u2018she didn\u2019t get up and do that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Most of Pearl\u2019s friends are also on family-tracking systems and they share their location with each other. She sometimes wonders about this, asking. \u201cShould I know what my friends are doing?\u201d She says it can occasionally make her anxious, as she finds herself thinking \u201c\u2018oh my friends are here and no one told me about that\u2019 … But I\u2019ve almost become desensitised to it. I enjoy the thought of people knowing where I am … Some people are quite into stalking Snap Maps [the map mode on Snapchat]. You can see where all your friends who have turned on their location on Snapchat are. I don\u2019t have my location on on Snapchat. I only have it on for eight or 10 of my closest friends.\u201d<\/p>\n [\u00a0Poetry for a surveillance societyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n As she gets older, does she think she might opt out of tracking? \u201cI can\u2019t really imagine being 30 years old and having my parents have my location,\u201d she says. But then she thinks about it: \u201cI\u2019m fine with them having it now, even though I\u2019m an adult and I\u2019m away from home. So why not at 30? \u201d<\/p>\n Noctor thinks tracking young people too closely could affect their development. A space for private mistakes \u201cis absolutely developmentally essential\u201d, he says. \u201cNot getting back on time and missing the bus encourages you to learn about responsibility … Lots of these things can\u2019t be taught, they have to be lived.\u201d<\/p>\n Twenty-one-year-old Charlie Beaudelot from Offaly studies human nutrition and dietetics at Trinity College and TU Dublin and has a more cautious take on location trackers. \u201cWhen I\u2019m on my way home, I\u2019ll share a location with one of my friends or share a location with one of my family members. And then there\u2019s a few people who I let track my location all the time, but that\u2019s mainly because they are people that are very close to me.\u201d<\/p>\n Beaudelot has been \u201cburned\u201d by more extensive location tracking in the past. When they first came to college, sharing locations was the norm in their new friend group. But people often ended up getting angry with each other due to feeling left out if they saw other people hanging out together. \u201cThere is that feeling of underlying stress of being watched all the time, which is one of the reasons why I don\u2019t share my location with many people now. The norm now is actually just sharing your location constantly … I have definitely been questioned on it a few times by less close friends … [and sometimes] felt pressured to share my location\u201d.<\/p>\n Part of the reason they think they might be uncomfortable with more widespread tracking is that Beaudelot\u2019s parents never tracked them in their teens. \u201cI know some friends who have their location constantly tracked by their parents even now in college,\u201d they say. \u201cThey come from stricter households … Tracking has really affected not only their relationship with their parents, but their social lives as well because they feel they are being watched.\u201d<\/p>\n [\u00a0The Irish Times view on CCTV in Dublin: Light camera actionOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n They have also seen the ways location tracking can be weaponised in problematic romantic relationships. \u201cI\u2019ve seen it with friends who have got into more controlling relationships where people feel that they need to be able to watch their partner doing everything,\u201d they say. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a difference between privacy and secrecy. I volunteer with Too Into You, part of Women\u2019s Aid, [a programme for young people experiencing abuse in intimate relationships] so I keep an eye out for red flags in behaviour. I know some people who have been in situations where their locations are tracked and they\u2019ve been accused, when turning off their location, of cheating … I think sharing location is too normalised.\u201d<\/p>\n Dola Twomey from the Stalking in Ireland Project, which is part of the Sexual Violence Centre in Cork, agrees that location tracking can be very problematic in the context of toxic relationships. \u201cEvery case [of stalking] will have a technological aspect to it. We carry the tech in our pockets all the time, and what that tech can actually do is just phenomenal compared to even 10 years ago,\u201d Twomey says.<\/p>\n Often people are tracked without their knowledge, but she is also keen to stress that if someone feels coerced into accepting being tracked, that doesn\u2019t constitute real consent. A controlling partner demanding someone\u2019s location at all times, she says, is like \u201cputting a leash on someone … It\u2019s typically hard for somebody stuck in that scenario to see it clearly, because making sure somebody doesn\u2019t see things clearly is part and parcel of the abuse\u201d.<\/p>\n![\"It](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/DO3IQ2B7P5CG7D6UDVOZLJSQOM.JPG\")
It is increasingly common to keep family tracking functioning for college-aged children. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n![\"Charlie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/PTREJROHNFDZLGK5KAWSSAWT5Q.jpg\")
Charlie Beaudelot says tracking has ‘really affected’ some friends’ social lives <\/p>\n
![\"Student](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6ZQYFJDZAFCVZGJ2KD3QSD3HR4.JPG\")
Student Jason Broe says he has been questioned many times about not letting people track his location. Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n