Richard Lardner, The Associated Press,
December 13, 2012.
WASHINGTON -
For around $50, a jealous wife or husband
can download software that can continuously track the whereabouts of a
spouse better than any private detective. It's frighteningly easy and
effective in an age when nearly everyone carries a cellphone that can
record every moment of a person's physical movements. But it soon might
be illegal.
The Senate Judiciary Committee was expected Thursday to approve
legislation that would close a legal loophole that allows so-called
cyberstalking apps to operate secretly on a cellphone and transmit the
user's location information without a person's knowledge.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., would update laws
passed years before wireless technology revolutionized communications.
Telephone companies currently are barred from disclosing to businesses
the locations of people when they make a traditional phone call. But
there's no such prohibition when communicating over the Internet.
If a
mobile device sends an email, links to a website or launches an app, the
precise location of the phone can be passed to advertisers, marketers
and others without the user's permission.
The ambiguity has created a niche for companies like Retina Software,
which makes ePhoneTracker and describes it as "stealth phone spy
software."
"Suspect your spouse is cheating?" the company's website says. "Don't break the bank by hiring a private investigator."
An emailed statement from Retina Software said the program is for the
lawful monitoring of a cellphone that the purchaser of the software
owns and has a right to monitor. If there is evidence the customer
doesn't own the phone, the account is closed, the company said. The
program is not intended or marketed for malicious purposes, the
statement said.
But Franken and supporters of his bill said there is no way to ensure
the rules are followed. These programs can be installed in moments,
perhaps while the cellphone's actual owner is sleeping or in the shower.
The apps operate invisibly to the cellphone's user. They can silently
record text messages, call logs, physical locations and visits to
websites. All the information is relayed to an email address chosen by
the installer.
Victim's advocacy groups said Franken's bill is a common-sense step
to curb stalking and domestic violence by weakening a tool that gives
one person power over another.
"It's really, really troubling that an industry would see an
opportunity to make money off of strengthening someone's opportunity to
control and threaten another individual," said Karen Jarmoc, executive
director of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
A domestic violence case in St. Louis County, Minn., helped persuade
Franken to introduce his bill. A woman had entered a county building to
meet with her advocate when she received a text message from her abuser
asking her why she was there, according to congressional testimony
delivered last year by the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
Frightened, she and her advocate went to the local courthouse to file
for a protective order. She got another text demanding to know why she
was at the courthouse. They later determined her abuser was tracing her
movements with an app that had been placed on her cellphone. The woman
was not identified by name in the congressional testimony.
Franken's proposal would make companies subject to civil liability if
they fail to secure permission before obtaining location information
from a person's cellphone and sharing it with anyone else. They also
would be liable if they fail to tell a user no later than seven days
after the service begins that the program is running on their phone.
Companies would face a criminal penalty if they knowingly operate an app
with the intent to facilitate stalking.
The bill includes an exception to the permission requirement for
parents who want to place tracking software on the cellphones of minor
children without them being aware it is there.
An organization representing software companies opposes Franken's
bill because it said the user consent requirement would curb innovation
in the private sector without adequately addressing the problem of
cyberstalking. Voluntary but enforceable codes of conduct for the
industry are more effective methods for increasing transparency and
consumer confidence, said David LeDuc, senior director for public policy
at the Software & Information Industry Association.
___
Online:
Senate Judiciary Committee: http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/
