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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."

17 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 Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Been there, done (some of) that. I am completely behind monitoring kids' activities' online. My daughters are now 22 and 23 and have always had their own computers. When their computers were put on my LAN and went online (they were 7 and 8), I moved their computers out of their bedroom and into the family room. That was the case until they got notebooks (12 and 13), at which point the notebooks had to stay on the first floor (kitchen and family room). They had cell phones when they were 7 and 8, with the understanding that I would regularly be inspecting the phones. Later on (because they were pretty good kids) regular inspections went out the door, but they knew that I might demand their phone at any time and look through it.

      When my younger one was 17, I noticed unusual changes in her behavior and thoughts, even though my wife was completely oblivious to them. After a couple of months of this, one night I asked her to hand over her phone. She did and I basically discovered that she had been seeing a 35 year old man she met during her physical therapy for her knee for a few months. Of course I was furious, but had I not monitored her activity, she would probably have married the asshole and ruined her life and future. I asked for all her credentials (email, FB, etc), changed her passwords, and she wasn't allowed online for 2 months, during which I had to erase the brainwashing that had been done to her during the past few months.

      Without monitoring, she would never have offered up any information regarding the changes she was not going through. Before you go all out and call me a clueless parent, let me tell you that I have always been upfront with my kids and no subject has ever been taboo. We did and still do discuss anything and everything and I am and have always been very close to them. When I got home from work (around 7 PM) and started cooking dinner, they were pretty much required to be around the kitchen/family room (and no TV in the family room either), and we always ate dinner together. The point I'm trying to get to is that, with ALL OF THAT, she still fell prey to some douche bag and had I not been monitoring her activity, worst things could have happened.

      Should you monitor your kids? Absolutely. Do it. If you don't, you'll never know what they're getting into. My friend is a high school counselor and she tells me about high school kids' lives. Their relationships with their parents are far from the relationship I had with my kids during their high school years, so I really wonder if those parents are aware of what goes on in their kids' lives. I really don't give a shit about the court system coming and telling me I can't put a keylogger on my kid's computer. Let them. I'll fight them and probably win. I don't care if they want to prosecute me for putting a GPS tracker underneath my car that is dedicated to my kids' driving it around. You want to know why? Because raising a kid is hard enough without having to worry about predators out there. If putting that GPS tracker underneath the car, keylogger on my their computer, surveillance software on their notebooks and phone, or any other means of tracking them allows me to sleep better and helps keep them out of harm's way, the government can kiss my ass and fight me in court.

    2. Re:Parents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      So, where did you hide his body?

    3. 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. Define "someone else's" phone by nwaack · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

    1. 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.

    2. 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.

    3. Re:Define "someone else's" phone by Penguinisto · · Score: 2

      Good luck with that. You can certainly do whatever the hell you please with it, but your personal feelings on the subject don't count for much in court.

      As a parent? I bought the device, and therefore I own it, not the kid(s). I made that perfectly clear with my own kids in turn when they were growing up... this is not your phone, and not your laptop. They're mine, and I'm lending them to you so that you can prove your increased responsibility to your mother and I. Once the kid was old enough to buy his own phone (and plan!), and his own laptop (and ISP hookup), then he got some privacy from us (outside the home, otherwise, enjoy the transparent proxy on my network).

      Until the kid moves out? Nope: my house, my stuff, my rules. I defy you to find a legal precedent that invalidates it.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    4. Re: Define "someone else's" phone by koomba · · Score: 2

      You say you are justified because they are your devices, so he has no expectation of privacy since you own them. But then you turn around and say that even after he bought his own devices, you still actively snoop on him through monitoring all network traffic? That goes beyond "my device, my rules" and goes firmly in the intrusive spying category. The fact that you can't trust your son even a little, after he's been mature enough to, I assume, get a job and bit his own electronics says volumes about you. All that accomplishes is making him resent you. You're saying to him that you don't trust him period, on principle. Your obsessive paranoia will just teach him to never trust you and never confide in you about anything serious, because your default assumption about him is that he can't be trusted and you have to spy on him. Congratulations on driving a long term wedge between you and your kid.

    5. Re:Define "someone else's" phone by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      It's no wonder kids are so happy to hand all their personal details over to Facebook, when they are used to having no privacy.

      It's not a good idea to repress their sexuality by denying privacy and this access to sex education material, and yes porn too. It tends not to work out well for them, to be that naive but also horny and repressed by age 18 or even later. Quite unhealthy.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. Nope, not illegal by LeftCoastThinker · · Score: 2

    With all that is out there lurking for children to prey upon, you can sure as hell bet that I will be monitoring MY phones that I pay for and I buy service for that I allow my minor children to use. Please point to the US law that makes this illegal because there is not one, it is not a gray area at all. Children only have a small subset of rights, and privacy from monitoring by their parents is not included. That common law goes back hundreds of years in the US and thousands of years before that in Europe.

    --
    If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
  4. Poor example by dnaumov · · Score: 2

    In many countries, parents spying on their underage children, their communications and their location at any time is not only fully legal, it is expected of the parents.

  5. It's not someone else's device... by Fished · · Score: 2

    If you're married, it is generally presumed that things are owned jointly. So, "our" phone.

    If it's a child and you are their guardian, it's generally "my phone" even if it was a gift or someone gave it to them.

    --
    "He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
  6. 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.

    1. Re:Look at all these ninny nannies... by farble1670 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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?

      ^^^ This guy has it. All things being equal, why not monitor the heck out of your kids? Even if it's a small chance something bad is going to happen, might as well be safe right? No.

      The problem is all things aren't equal. By monitoring them, you rob them of the life experience of learning how to deal with things on their own and solve their own problems. Not to mention, you teach them about a big scary world where bad things are lurking around every corner, as opposed to one that's open for them to enjoy and experience.

      The benefit you get from removing that minutely small chance they'll be preyed up online (or whatever, I'm honestly at a loss what people think they are protecting their kids from) isn't worth robbing them of life skills.

  7. I guess it depends on the situation... by Drakonblayde · · Score: 3

    For kids it's a no brainer. They don't legally possess property, and they can't legally enter into a contract with a phone provider, which means they need someone else to obtain the device and access to use it for them. As such, just because they happen to use it, doesn't mean they own it, and the owner can do with their property as they see fit.

    Same goes for the computers in the house. The kids have their own computers, but I have them heavily locked down in what they can do, both at the individual host level, and the network level.

    Once they come of age, I will officially transfer ownership of their devices to them and remove any restrictions or monitoring on them (provided, of course, that they obtain their own cell phone contracts).

    Now, if I were to slip some spyware onto my wifes computer or phone, or my mother in law's when she visits, or that deadbeat cousin who crashes with us for a few months before he finds another job, then I'm probably in violation of doing anything to their devices. Their network traffic is still fair game though, since I own and administer the pipes they're using while in my house.

  8. Re:Minors by geekmux · · Score: 2

    My kid's phone is mine. It's in my name, I pay for it, and no prosecutor's going to go after me for PARENTING.

    If any of you were looking for the legal equivalent of "hold my beer and watch this.", you've found it.

    Hell, who needs wiretapping laws, right? I'm sure the judge will take your 'cause-imma-parent defense.