Apps regularly pop up in divorce cases, experts say. Over 80% of U.S. divorce attorneys say they’ve seen a rise in the number of cases using social networking, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML)
Sometimes it’s not the social networking sites themselves, but how they are accessed to gain information.
With that said, let’s remember, there are legal apps that are helpful when you have an aging parent, a teenage child, or apps that allow family members to see every phone’s location. These apps are helpful since everyone is aware they are installed on the phone.
But what if there is an app on your phone that does more than show your location? What if the app allows someone else to see your text messages, your emails, and your photos and even hear your conversations? When that happens, it is much more than a gray area, it becomes a legal issue.
Some spywares listening devices, phone taps electronic surveillances that can take over your phone and some have the capabilities of blocking calls, texts, emails for a scheduled amount of time so that you don’t receive information. To name a few, Flexispy, Highster Mobile, mspy, ikeymonitor, and phone sheriff. These are very popular spywares for smartphones and most work on all model phones.
With over 38.1 Million smart phones sold each year it is more than chance that you are storing personal information on a device you carry around with you everywhere you go. Using your cellular device is common practice, at dinner, at a sporting event, jogging, work, entertainment events, beach and just lying on the couch watching TV, your smart phone is close by.
Is your phone password protected? Do you have apps that allow you to find a device if it goes missing, lost or stolen? What we think as protection could in some circumstances be used in a negative manner.
has conducted multiple news media interviews on various spyware situations where one party has accessed an unauthorized phone and gained valuable information, which was then used against them or for the benefit of the person who installed the spyware.
Cell Phone Forensics is a common request, along with forensic data recovery and data extraction software due to the easily accessible spywares available on the market.
Let’s discuss the situation where our Client was contemplating a marriage dissolution with her husband. She knew, without a fact, he had information only known to her and her business partner. And she knew her business partner would never divulge information to her husband, as they had had marital problems for several years, but had decided to stay together for the kids. Our Client was the bread winner, her husband, well he worked when he wanted and played when he wasn’t employed, which in time became more often. He would make comments about certain dates and meetings she attended and alluded to the topics of the meetings. He would drop hints here and there, especially when she would become disillusioned in their relationship. His hints became more and more factual and this is when she decided she needed professional help, she called Sand explained her phone would lose battery power, the screen would pop on and off and sometimes she couldn’t make calls or she would miss calls without any explanation. She was sure there was some type of listening device application installed on her phone.
We conducted a cell phone spyware detection analysis on her smart phone to determine if she had a cell phone monitoring application hidden within her phone. After completing the mobile phone forensic analysis we determined that hidden in one of her folders there was an application that would allow another smart phone to see her communications, her locations and could block outgoing and incoming calls. Unfortunately the application wasn’t installed by her downloading an attachment, that someone had had access to her phone and the downloading was done manually. Although we could not prove her husband was the culprit, she knew it was him. We safely removed the application with her permission. She could have actually had him criminally prosecuted and sued for damages.
-Brenda McGinley, CEO, All in Investigations
