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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."

6 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. 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. 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.