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More Than Half of People Believe Using Spyware To Snoop On Family Members Is Legal, Study Finds (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the grey-area dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A new study shows that 53 percent of people believe it's legal to install a program on a family member's phone to snoop on their activity. The survey of more than 2,000 people in the US and UK by software comparison service Comparitech.com also finds 57 percent would consider spying on their children's phone conversations and messages. [...] It is generally illegal to install an app on another person's phone without their knowledge. Though this does depend on the circumstances. "It's a legal grey area, in that the laws haven't been truly tested in this arena as of yet since the technology is relatively new, so as relevant cases move through the legal system they'll be decided on a case by case basis," says Josh King, a legal expert in privacy laws and the chief legal officer of Avvo, an online legal marketplace in the US. "Intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud claims -- all could be implicated, depending on the circumstances. It's also possible that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act could be used to prosecute someone who installs this type of app on someone else's phone."

5 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. Parents by Jamu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm guessing that half is the parents, and the other half - that disagrees - is the children.

    --
    Who ordered that?
    1. Re:Parents by farble1670 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I told my son that I can see all the websites his phone goes to.

      Well, he'll never figure out how to get around that one will he (or figure out you are full of crap)? His friends don't have phones. Or computers. And he'll never figure out how to disable the software checks. Nor will his friends. I'm sure.

      I told my son he can look at anything but explained some of the things he's going to find and let him know he should talk to me about if he has questions finds something disturbing. Your kids are going to see it all more sooner than later. It'd behoove you to prep them for that rather than try to hide it from them. All you are doing is letting them know when they do see it that they'd better not let you find out.

      By the time your kids are teens you are basically done. They are mainly learning from and emulating their peers and (non-parental) mentors. You'd better hope you've equipped them to handle what they can find online before that. If not you have bigger problems than choosing a surveillance software package.

  2. Re:Define "someone else's" phone by geekmux · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I'm paying for my kids phone I'll do whatever the hell I please with it.

    Phones are bought.

    Trust is earned.

    Good luck with that shit. Legally and otherwise.

  3. Look at all these ninny nannies... by xession · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'd bet most of the parents for millenials and older weren't so damn intrusive on the lives of their children. Hell, when I was a kid, most parents seemed to want you to come back or check in maybe every 4 hours at best. And now, parents want their kids in the home and heavily monitored with what they are doing. What gives?

    If you're a quality parent, then you should be able to trust your kid until they give a significant reason not to trust you. Monitoring them only encourages learning better sleuthing to get around it. Teach your damn kids what you expect of them up front, enforce it and them trust them to stick to it until they don't. Not being able to trust your kid to do anything without being able to surveil their every move, is a pretty strong reflection on how weak your parenting skills really are.

  4. Re:Define "someone else's" phone by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While the courts may not care that you own the phone, most do care that it's your child. Because a minor isn't capable of providing consent on their own behalf, most courts recognize the notion of "vicarious consent", that is, that the parent can consent on behalf of the child to wiretap the child's phone call. This sort of stuff comes up in divorce cases where one parent wants to tape the calls between a child and another parent.

    There's some additional information here: http://scholarship.law.edu/cgi...

    Usual disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, I merely play the part of an armchair lawyer when online.