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Maker of StealthGenie, an app used for spying, indicted in Virginia Maker of StealthGenie, an app used for spying, indicted in Virginia
(about 2 hours later)
Federal officials have indicted the Pakistani maker of a popular smartphone app designed for spying on a user’s children or romantic partner, the first case of its kind in the burgeoning market for private-sector surveillance software built for iPhones and Android devices. Federal officials on Monday announced the arrest of the maker of a popular smartphone app marketed as a tool for catching “cheating” spouses by eavesdropping on their calls and tracking their locations — in what critics have described as a way to help domestic abusers stalk their victims.
The program, called StealthGenie, allows users to monitor nearly all forms of a target’s communications — calls, texts, social media postings — while also tracking the smartphone’s location and secretly activating its microphone to make recordings. The burgeoning market for surveillance software had grown to the point where Web sites rank surveillance apps on their price, features and even customer service. But federal officials, in announcing the first prosecution of its kind, said that StealthGenie violated the law by offering the ability to secretly monitor phone calls and other communications in almost real time, something typically legal only for law enforcement officials.
While similar to technology used by police to track suspects, its use by private individuals allegedly violates federal law. Activists against domestic violence have long expressed concern that surveillance software can lead to attacks on women suspected of infidelity. Activists against domestic violence long have urged federal officials to take more aggressive action against the high-tech tools used by abusers. Though often advertised for monitoring wayward children or suspicious employees, surveillance software often ends up in the hands of people who might beat their wives or girlfriends, activists say.
The chief executive of the company that makes StealthGenie, Hammad Akbar, 31, was arrested in Los Angeles on Saturday, according to a news release from the Justice Department. A grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted Akbar for several alleged crimes, including conspiracy, sale of a surreptitious interception device and advertising a surreptitious interception device. StealthGenie -- for prices ranging from $99.99 up to $199.99 a year for a “Platinum” version— allows buyers the ability to track nearly any movement or utterance of an unsuspecting target over days or weeks.
“Selling spyware is not just reprehensible, it’s a crime,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell. “Apps like StealthGenie are expressly designed for use by stalkers and domestic abusers who want to know every detail of a victim’s personal life — all without the victim’s knowledge. The Criminal Division is committed to cracking down on those who seek to profit from technology designed and used to commit brazen invasions of individual privacy.” “The fact that it’s running in surreptitious mode is what makes it so foul,” said Cindy Southworth of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. “They work really hard to make it totally secretive.”
StealthGenie, like several other software surveillance programs on the market, requires that a user gain physical access to a targeted smartphone. Once StealthGenie is installed, however, it continuously reports information back to the user, whether it be a parent, a spouse or another romantic partner. The chief executive of the company that makes StealthGenie, Hammad Akbar, 31, of Lahore, Pakistan, was arrested in Los Angeles on Saturday, according to a news release from the Justice Department.
A grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia in August indicted Akbar for several alleged crimes, including conspiracy, sale of a surreptitious interception device and advertising a surreptitious interception device. That indictment was unsealed Monday afternoon. Efforts to reach Akbar’s attorney, based in Los Angeles, were not successful.
“Selling spyware is not just reprehensible, it’s a crime,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, in the news release. “Apps like StealthGenie are expressly designed for use by stalkers and domestic abusers who want to know every detail of a victim’s personal life — all without the victim’s knowledge. The Criminal Division is committed to cracking down on those who seek to profit from technology designed and used to commit brazen invasions of individual privacy.”
StealthGenie, like several other software surveillance programs on the market, requires that a user gain physical access to a targeted smartphone. Once StealthGenie is installed, however, it continuously reports information back to the user, whether it be a parent, a spouse or other romantic partner.
Almost anything on a smarphone is vulnerable to collection by StealthGenie, including texts, calendar entries, contacts, Web browing history and social media postings. Calls can be recorded and listened to later, and the microphone can be activated so that the user can simply listen to the ambient sounds of a target’s daily life, according to a cached version of the company Web site, which was not active on Monday. The app also plots the moment-by-moment movements of a target on an online map.
Though tracking a person’s location without consent is illegal in most circumstances, the indictment focuses heavily on the marketing of StealthGenie’s ability to intercept calls and other communications, an alleged violation of the federal Wiretap Act. The indictment also reports that investigators found marketing documents showing that that Akbar’s company, InvoCode, based in the United Kingdom, estimated that 65 percent of purchasers of StealthGenie were likely to be people suspecting their romantic partners of infidelity.
“According to our market research[,] the majority chunk of the sales will come from people suspecting their partners to be cheating on them or just wanting to keep an eye on” on their romantic partners, the indictment says.
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