Nebraska GPS Tracking Laws: Is It Legal to Put a Tracker on a Car? (2026)

Nebraska is the clearest gap state in the country when it comes to GPS tracking. No Nebraska statute makes it a crime for a private person to put a tracker on someone else's car.

That gap is not a secret. Victims have testified about it at the Capitol, police have confirmed they often cannot act on it, and the bill written to close it died when the 2026 legislative session ended in April.

This guide explains what Nebraska law actually says, where tracking can still cross into criminal stalking, and the civil lawsuit option most people miss. It is part of our GPS Tracking Laws by State series.

Is It Legal to Put a GPS Tracker on a Car in Nebraska?

In most situations, yes, and that answer surprises almost everyone who asks. Nebraska has no law that criminalizes attaching a GPS device to a vehicle you do not own.

Most states reach secret tracking through one of two routes: a standalone tracking device crime, or stalking language broad enough to cover electronic monitoring. Nebraska has neither.

The only statute in Nebraska that even defines a "mobile tracking device" is Neb. Rev. Stat. 86-2,103. It says a district court may issue a warrant or other order for the installation of a tracking device. That is a rule about police surveillance. It says nothing about what private citizens may or may not do.

So if someone magnets a tracker under your bumper in Omaha or Lincoln, no Nebraska statute makes the act of placing it a crime. Whether anything can be done depends on what the person does with the location data, which is where the stalking statute comes in. More on that below.

Nebraska Has No Tracking Device Law, and Prosecutors Know It

This is not a theoretical gap that lawyers argue about. It has played out in real cases, in public, at the Nebraska Capitol.

At a Judiciary Committee hearing on February 6, 2026, an Omaha-area woman testified that she found three different trackers in or on her vehicle within roughly six months. When she went to police, they told her that placing a tracker on her car was not, by itself, illegal in Nebraska.

Her ex-husband was eventually arrested, but only after she produced evidence that he had actively used the tracker to locate her. The device alone was not enough.

A Bellevue police officer testified at the same hearing that she had worked roughly 20 stalking cases, and only two had made it to court. Law enforcement supported the fix. So did prosecutors and domestic violence advocates. The gap is documented, acknowledged, and, for now, still open.

When Tracking Might Be Harassment or Stalking

Nebraska's stalking and harassment statutes, Neb. Rev. Stat. 28-311.02 through 28-311.04, are the closest existing tools, and they were not built for this.

Stalking requires a knowing and willful course of conduct that seriously terrifies, threatens, or intimidates a specific person and serves no legitimate purpose. The statute defines "course of conduct" as a series of acts of following, detaining, restraining the personal liberty of, or stalking the person, or telephoning, contacting, or otherwise communicating with the person.

Read that list again. Tracking is not on it. Neither is monitoring, surveilling, or any electronic equivalent.

Prosecutors can sometimes fit a tracker case into "following" if the stalker physically shows up where the victim goes, because the GPS data explains how he found her. But quietly watching someone's location from a phone, without contact, is very difficult to charge under the current text. That is exactly the conduct Nebraska's recent bills tried to reach.

Here is how the penalties stack up under the law that does exist:

The Bill That Could Change This: LB 1059

Nebraska lawmakers have now tried twice to close the gap, and both bills died.

LB 1224, introduced by Senator Jennifer Day in January 2024, would have prohibited installing a mobile tracking device on another person's property without consent. It did not pass before the 2024 session ended.

LB 1059, introduced by Senator Carolyn Bosn on January 14, 2026, took another run at it. The bill would have made it a crime to knowingly install a tracker on another person's property without consent, to use a tracker to monitor someone without consent, or to fail to remove a device after consent was revoked. Consent would have automatically ended when a divorce was filed or a protection order was issued.

A first offense would have been a Class I misdemeanor. It would have jumped to a Class IIIA felony for repeat offenders, anyone under a protection order, or anyone with a history of violence toward the victim. The bill included sensible exceptions for parents tracking minor children, caregivers of vulnerable adults, fleet and business vehicles, licensed private investigators within limits, and vehicle owners.

LB 1059 drew strong support at its February 6, 2026 hearing and was designated a priority bill. It still ran out of time. When the Legislature adjourned, the bill was indefinitely postponed on April 17, 2026, the procedural end of the line.

Until a future Legislature passes a version of this bill, Nebraska remains a state where placing a tracker is not itself a crime. Watch the Nebraska Legislature's website for a reintroduction in the 2027 session.

Who Can Legally Track a Vehicle in Nebraska

Even in a gap state, some tracking is clearly lawful, and some categories would stay legal under any future bill:

Your own vehicle. You can put a GPS device on a car titled in your name. This gets complicated with jointly owned vehicles during a separation, where ownership is technically shared but the tracking is plainly adversarial.

Parents tracking minor children. No Nebraska law restricts a parent or guardian from tracking their own minor child's location or vehicle.

Law enforcement with a warrant. Under United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), the U.S. Supreme Court held that attaching a GPS device to a vehicle and monitoring its movements is a Fourth Amendment search. Nebraska's Neb. Rev. Stat. 86-2,103 gives district courts the authority to issue tracking warrants.

Businesses tracking their own fleet. A company can track vehicles it owns or leases.

Lenders and dealers. GPS units installed for repossession purposes on financed vehicles are common and generally lawful, though disclosure in the loan paperwork is the norm.

Can My Employer Track My Car in Nebraska?

Nebraska has no statute regulating employer GPS tracking, so the default rules are simple.

On a company-owned or company-leased vehicle, your employer can install GPS tracking and does not need your permission. Most fleet operators disclose it anyway, but no Nebraska law requires notice or consent.

Your personal vehicle is different. An employer who hides a tracker on an employee's own car has no ownership justification, and that is the fact pattern most likely to support an invasion of privacy lawsuit under Nebraska's privacy statutes, discussed below. If your employer wants to track your personal car for mileage or routing, insist on written terms and the ability to turn tracking off outside work hours.

Employers monitoring vehicles should also understand Nebraska's rules on workplace recording and surveillance, and our guide to surveillance camera laws covers the video side.

AirTags and Item Trackers in Nebraska

Everything above applies equally to AirTags, Tiles, Samsung SmartTags, and similar item trackers. Nebraska law does not distinguish between a hardwired GPS unit and a coin-sized Bluetooth tracker, because it does not address either one.

That means dropping an AirTag in someone's bag or attaching one to their car is not, by itself, a Nebraska crime. If the person uses it as part of conduct that terrifies or intimidates you, the stalking statute may apply, with the same proof problems described above.

Apple and Google have built anti-stalking alerts into iPhones and Android phones, and those alerts are often how Nebraska victims discover trackers in the first place. Save the alert screenshots. They are evidence of the device's serial number and how long it has been moving with you.

Suing Under Nebraska's Statutory Privacy Act

Here is the tool most Nebraskans have never heard of. Nebraska is one of the few states that wrote its privacy torts into statute, at Neb. Rev. Stat. 20-201 through 20-211.

Section 20-203 is the one that matters for tracking. It provides that any person who "trespasses or intrudes upon any natural person in his or her place of solitude or seclusion, if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, shall be liable for invasion of privacy."

Secretly logging everywhere a person drives, day and night, for weeks is a strong candidate for a highly offensive intrusion. A civil claim under 20-203 does not require a prosecutor's approval, does not require proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and can seek money damages directly from the person who planted the device.

This civil route matters more in Nebraska than almost anywhere else, precisely because the criminal route so often dead-ends. If you have documented a tracker on your vehicle, talk to a Nebraska civil attorney about a 20-203 claim even if police decline to act.

What to Do If You Find a Tracker on Your Car

1. Photograph it in place before touching it. Location, wiring, serial numbers. Documentation is everything later.
2. Call police and ask for a report. Even if no charge follows, the report creates a record that supports a protection order petition and a civil suit.
3. Think before removing it. If you are in a domestic violence situation, removing the device tells the person who planted it that you know. Safety planning with an advocate may come first. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-799-7233.
4. Petition for a harassment protection order. Under the Protection Orders Act, any victim who has been harassed can petition under Neb. Rev. Stat. 26-104. Violating the order is a crime, which converts future tracking-related contact into something police can act on. Our Nebraska restraining order guide walks through the process.
5. Preserve the device and your phone alerts. The tracker's account registration can identify who planted it.
6. Consult a civil attorney about an invasion of privacy claim under Neb. Rev. Stat. 20-203.

Sources

Primary sources for this guide, including the Nebraska stalking statutes, the statutory privacy act, and the full text and status history of LB 1059, are listed below.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Laws change, and the death of LB 1059 in April 2026 means this area of Nebraska law could look different after the next legislative session. If you are dealing with a tracking or stalking situation in Nebraska, consult a licensed Nebraska attorney. If you are in danger, call 911 or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233.