Is tracking your partner just common sense in the digital age or should it set alarm bells ringing? 

Originally, air tags were invented to help people find their keys or phones. 

Then people began to use them on children - Zara and Mike Tindall’s child was recently spotted with one on her. 

Perhaps inevitably, people now use them on their partners as well. 

“It’s become increasingly popular,” journalist Kirsty Blake Knox explained to Moncrieff. 

“Some people kind of see it as a potential red flag if you want to track your partner and their whereabouts and they said ‘no’ because it might suggest that they’re trying to conceal something. 

“There’s family tracking apps that have 50 million users worldwide, so it’s becoming a growing thing that people do to keep tabs on one another.” 

Much like smart phones, some people are even saying they cannot imagine life without them. 

“There’s a couple of people who are saying it’s really handy because they want to know that their partner’s on the way home, it saves having to text,” Ms Blake Knox said. 

“Some people were saying, ‘I use it if my husband goes on a cycle so that I can see whereabouts he is and how close he is to coming home.’ 

“It does seem like an invasion of privacy, it’s not something I would ever feel comfortable doing.

“I think it would turn you into a bit of a stalker.” 

Woman holding a phone on a beach. Image: Oleg Elkov / Alamy Stock Photo

Ms Blake Knox said she understands the “safety aspect” of tracking people but worries it could lead to other forms of behaviour. 

“It just seems it would start developing into obsessive behaviour, surely?” she said. 

“That’s just what I think… It would make me kind of wary if someone suggested that I did it with my partner. 

“If he said, ‘I want to do this’ alarm bells would start to ring for me.”

After all, what if you’re tracked heading out to the very shop where you might be picking up your partner’s birthday present? 

“You need some privacy but privacy seems to be something that we give over so easily sometimes without thinking of the repercussions,” Ms Blake Knox said.

You can listen back here:

Main image: A woman looking out the window. Picture by: Alamy.com