Aubrey Ireland, a 21-year-old college student in Ohio, has filed a lawsuit against her parents for stalking her by installing tracking software on her smartphone and computer. Now talk about love!
Ireland’s parents told her that she could go anywhere she wanted for college and that money wouldn’t be an issue — an option I’m sure most kids would appreciate. However, it seems that her parents’ love knew no bounds, whether it had anything to do with distance or decency.
Mr. and Mrs. Ireland would drive 600 miles to visit Aubrey in college, completely unannounced, and accuse her of debauchery and suffering from mental illness. Her parents even installed tracking software on her smartphone and computer to monitor her daily activities. When Aubrey decided she’d had enough, she asked for a restraining order against her parents and courts granted it. Her parents are now forbidden to make contact with her for a year.
As a result, Aubrey Ireland’s parents are asking to be paid back $66,000 in college fees and tuition, which the courts denied. The University of Cincinnati offered to pay for Aubrey’s senior year.
The fact that it has become so easy to track people by installing software like Find My Friends, on their smartphones, has caused torn families, dissolved relationships and marriages and general mistrust amongst friends and loved ones when such a thing occurs. It’s never a good thing to track or stalk someone by installing software on their smartphones or computers, but I find myself asking — what’s the difference between doing that and hiring a private detective to do some spying and surveillance?