The commodification of mobile phone surveillance: An analysis of the consumer spyware industry

Abstract

This article examines the attempts of ‘spyware’ developers to commodify and market their products to a general audience. While consumers of ‘spyware’ have often been government and law enforcement (Citizen Lab, 2015), there is an increasing attempt to market, sell, and commodify ‘spyware’ for use by wider audiences. ‘Spyware’ is sold as a security product commonly aimed at businesses, parents, and intimate partners. Pursuant to calls for a “sociology of security consumption” (Goold et al., 2010: 3), this article analyzes how nine prominent spyware vendors attribute meaning to their products. Spyware vendors face particularly fraught marketing challenges as the general deployment of spyware: a) is often utilized in forms of intimate partner abuse; b) is “morally troubling” from the perspective of being corrosive to many forms of social relations (Loader et al., 2014: 469); and c) has limited contexts where it could be deployed without violating surveillance laws. More specifically, this article compares the social meaning that vendors attempt to give to spyware and contrasts this with the powers of surveillance provided by the product, the marketing messages that appear to support non-consensual use, and the lack of guidance for non-consenting spyware targets to have recourse with the vendors.

Technology-Facilitated Domestic Abuse in Political Economy: A New Theoretical Framework

“…however, the availability of such products highlights the commodification and marketisation of abuse, supply emerging to meet demand amongst those with an intention to spy on others without their consent (Harkin, Molnar and Vowles, 2019).…”

Operating-System Design and Its Implications for Victims of Family Violence: The Comparative Threat of Smart Phone Spyware for Android Versus iPhone Users

“…There is a burgeoning industry of spyware developers who sell powerful tools of surveillance to general consumers (Franceschi-Bicchierai & Cox, 2017). These products are commonly marketed to parents, businesses, and those who wish to “spy” on their intimate partner (see Harkin et al, 2019). Once a mobile phone or personal computer is compromised by spyware, a third-party “operator” can spy on the activity on that device, typically being capable of tracking the GPS location of the user, having access to confidential SMS message or phone call information, accessing any photos or video taken by the device, monitoring internet browsing activity, and in certain cases, having live access to the camera or speaker of the phone for eavesdropping, among other capabilities (Harkin et al, 2019).…”

“…Developing a comprehensive understanding of the scale and scope of spyware use is inherently difficult due to its clandestine nature, but it is apparent that it is a present danger to the privacy of phones and personal devices. While spyware may be used in several different contexts, it is clear that it is often deployed by perpetrators of intimate partner abuse, with many spyware vendors explicitly suggesting it be used against “spouses” (see Harkin et al, 2019).…”

“…There is a growing recognition of the threat posed by spyware for victims of family violence. This can be seen with the increasing discussion of this problem in scholarly works (see for example Chatterjee et al, 2018; Citron, 2015; Douglas & Burdon, 2018; Eterovic-Soric et al, 2017; Freed et al, 2017, 2018; Harkin et al, 2019; Parsons et al, 2019; Woodlock, 2017), and within media reports (see for example Armageddon, 2017; Franceschi-Bicchierai and Cox, 2017; Greenberg, 2019; Koebler, 2017). Similarly, it is an issue of notable concern among the family violence advocacy sector with many services such as the Women’s Services Network (WESNET, 2019a) in Australia and the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV, 2019) in the United States now providing online support and guidance on how to diagnose, respond to, and protect yourself from abusive spyware.…”

Politics of Adversarial Machine Learning

“…Although it may seem that bridges with low clearance are not political, Winner explains that there was evidence suggesting that the underpasses were built this way to preclude public buses from using the roads -denying those who relied on public transit, predominantly low-income New Yorkers of color, access to certain public spaces (Winner, 1980;Woolgar & Cooper, 1999). Today, we can speak of the politics of algorithms, which can automate decisions in discriminatory ways (Noble, 2018;Eubanks, 2018;Benjamin, 2019) and spyware, which is used and abused by authoritarian governments to track, suppress, and harm human rights activists and dissidents (Harkin et al, 2019;Penney et al, 2018). Technology has the potential to reinforce or undermine existing power relationships in the context in which it is used, and even technologies or related practices that appear neutral, benign, or even benevolent have potential impacts on civil liberties and human rights.…”