If you’ve ever had a boss look over your shoulder, you’ll appreciate this: He has a satellite now.

A New York State court has determined that data from a Global Positioning Satellite system in an employee’s car can be used to discipline – even dismiss –that employee. In short: Goof off in the company car, and your TomTom might tell on you.

It’s already cost one Westchester man his job, and the case of the dismissed North Castle building inspector has opened an orbital can of worms with space-age legal implications.

Attorney Bruce Millman, who represented the Town of North Castle when the fired inspector appealed his termination, doesn’t predict drastic changes in the private sector, where GPS vehicle tracking is already commonplace. But the Nov. 20 decision could have serious implications for government employees, Millman said, by prompting more government employers to “either install GPS systems, or seek the right to do it.”

Lost in space

According to Millman, the North Castle inspector was assigned a town vehicle for day-to-day fieldwork, and a GPS tracker indicated that “over a period of time” he “falsified reports of his location, whereabouts and movements.” Based on that evidence, the town cited the inspector for misconduct and, after a disciplinary hearing, fired him.

The former inspector sued North Castle “and attacked the reliability of the data itself,” Millman said. But “the court found that this evidence was sufficiently reliable to be used for termination.”

That decision doesn’t sit well with civil libertarians, according to Seth Muraskin, executive director of the Suffolk County Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Muraskin said the ACLU and its New York offshoots have less of a problem with private businesses tracking employee movements with satellites, but “more of a problem if it’s a town or government agency.”

“It’s more of an intrusion on individual privacy by the government,” he said. “Private companies can do what they want … though we’re still opposed to it in theory.”

Putting aside privacy concerns, Muraskin suggested the fired inspector had a legitimate gripe when he challenged the accuracy of the data that did him in. “A lot of time … GPS systems don’t always give the right information,” Muraskin said. “You have a number of people who may be wrongly prosecuted based on incorrect information.”

The executive director conceded that GPS tracking has its place in public life – “you can make the argument for any public safety official or agency” – but only if it’s “properly monitored and controlled.”

“If you’re going to have something like that, it has to be for a specific reason,” Muraskin said. “Not just an intrusion.”