StealthGenie 'stalker app' maker arrested over its alleged privacy violation
First-of-its-kind prosecution argues StealthGenie violates personal privacy
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 01 October, 2014, 3:58am
UPDATED : Wednesday, 01 October, 2014, 3:58am
The Washington Post
StealthGenie can secretly monitor phone calls and other personal communications
US federal officials have announced the arrest of the maker of a smartphone app marketed as a tool for catching cheating spouses by eavesdropping on their calls and tracking their locations, a system that critics have dubbed "stalker apps".
In the first prosecution of its kind, officials said that the StealthGenie violated the law by offering the ability to secretly monitor phone calls and other personal communications, something typically legal only for law enforcement.
Activists working to prevent domestic violence have long urged United States officials to take more aggressive action on the hi-tech tools used by abusers.
Although it often was advertised as a system for monitoring small children or suspicious employees, surveillance software frequently ended up in the hands of people who might beat partners, activists said.
StealthGenie, with prices ranging from US$100 to US$200 a year, allows buyers to track nearly any movement or utterance of their target, underscoring the remarkable surveillance capabilities of iPhones, BlackBerrys and Android devices.
"The fact that it is 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."
The chief executive of the company making StealthGenie, Hammad Akbar, 31, of Lahore, Pakistan, was arrested in Los Angeles on Saturday, according to the Justice Department.
A grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted Akbar in August, and the case involves charges of conspiracy, sale of a surreptitious interception device and advertising a surreptitious interception device.
That previously sealed indictment was announced on Monday afternoon.
Court filings suggest that Akbar has contended that any legal issues were limited to the users of StealthGenie, not its maker.
"When the customer buys the product, they assume all responsibility," he wrote in a 2011 email, court filings show. "We do not need to describe the legal issues."
Efforts to reach Akbar's lawyer, based in Los Angeles, were not successful.
"Selling spyware is not just reprehensible, it's a crime," assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, said.
"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."
