Stopping Digital Spying in Your Divorce

For as long as there has been marriages and divorce, there have been spouses who do not trust each other while the relationship conflict progresses. Years ago, hiring a private investigator was routine during a divorce to see if the other spouse was acting dishonestly, perhaps engaging in an extramarital affair, wasting assets or transferring assets. The laws of equitable distribution are designed to keep each spouse a fair shared of assets. Nowadays, in the digital age, monitoring and spying on a spouse using digital technology is easier than ever.

Wisselman, Harounian & Associates and our Long Island cybersecurity and divorce lawyers are here to protect your rights, privacy, and best interests during your divorce. If your spouse is using unlawful methods to track your conversations and activities during divorce, and even harassing you using cameras and recording devices, then we can help bring it to an end through legal actions and courtroom measures. On the other hand, we can also help you lawfully collect information from your soon-to-be ex-spouse who may be trying to hide important financial and divorce-related information from you.

To learn more about your rights to privacy in divorce, call 516-773-8300 now. We accept calls 7 days a week.

How Can Your Spouse Digitally Spy on You?

Each moment in your life is probably accompanied in some form by an electronic or piece of cyber technology. Unfortunately, the convenience of modern tech also means it is highly convenient for your spouse to try to digitally spy on you. Using a variety of methods and applications, they might be able to access your information without your consent or otherwise keep track of you.

Your spouse may be able to digitally spy on you by:

  • Crawling through your social media accounts while incognito
  • Accessing your internet browser history
  • Reviewing your cellphone statements and text message records
  • Downloading a GPS tracker app to your smartphone without your knowledge
  • Locating you via the GPS tracker in your car, if possible
  • Texting your friends to try to extract information about you from them
  • Stalking you, recording you, videotaping you with or without your knowledge

How You Can Help Stop Digital Spying

A simple method to limit how much digital spying your spouse can do while you divorce is steering clear of social media. While it might not sound fun, you should log out of all your social media apps and not use them at all until your divorce is concluded if you are worried your spouse might go digging there for damaging information about you. You may also want to take your smartphone to your local cell service dealer – like an AT&T or Apple store – and ask their experts to look through your phone for suspicious spyware apps. Oftentimes, the app is hidden in plain sight, but you need to know what it looks like in order to disable it.

Why Would Your Spouse Digitally Spy?

Spying on your spouse might be the furthest thing in your mind when you are going through a divorce. It can be difficult to understand why your spouse would try to use digital technologies to spy on you at all if you never thought to do it yourself. The reason spouses digitally spy is almost always rooted somewhere in trying to gain an advantage in divorce, by finding out information that will embarrass you or undermine you.

Your spouse may try to digitally spy on you to:

  • Win child custody rightsA court will not want to assign child custody to a parent who seems unfit for parenting. If your spouse can find images of you on social media drinking or vaping at an exciting party during your divorce, for example, it could be used as fodder in court to argue you are not ready to be a residential parent or to ask that your time with the children be monitored.
  • Secure more assets: Equitable distribution calls for the fair division of your marital property. If your spouse can download receipts of your spending during divorce, for example, they could try to misconstrue purchases for intentional overspending, arguing that you deserve less in equitable distribution or in spousal support.
  • Defame you: In general, your spouse might be trying to defame your good name, so the court sees less reason to trust you. Embarrassing information about you can damage your credibility and character. Social media posts and other digital footprints could tip the scales out of your favor – and your spouse knows it.

Want to know more about digital spying and how to stop it? Call our Long Island cybersecurity and divorce lawyers at 516-773-8300 today to arrange an initial consultation.

Call (516) 773-8300 or contact us online today. Click here for a consultation!