Illegal use of spyware to spy on loved ones is spreading in Switzerland

The Mspy app, which claims to be a parental control tool, is used illegally to spy on loved ones, and notoriously romantic partners or ex-partners, according to an investigation by SRF and online magazine Republik.External link

Internal Mspy data, published by Swiss hacker Maia Arson Crimew, reveals that around 2,500 people with links to Switzerland have communicated with Mspy. These are people who have an email address ending in “.ch” or who have been identified as located in Switzerland. These are only people who have contacted Mspy customer service.

It is not possible to deduce from these data the exact number of users of the software in Switzerland. On the one hand, some people may have contacted Mspy without using their service. On the other hand, conversely, some users have not necessarily contacted customer service. Furthermore, other “stalkerware” is available on the market.

A variety of profiles

The profiles of stalkers identified by SRF and Republik magazine are varied. Customer service emails show, for example, that a doctor and professor from Zurich wants his money back, because he no longer needs his Mspy subscription. It is difficult to know what precise use the man made of this application, but in all likelihood he used it.

These documents also reveal that federal employees are writing to Mspy because they want to use the surveillance application privately.

Even a former regional police chief finds himself in customer service emails. He was using the app for his own purposes. He allows himself a complaint to customer service: “The product did not meet our expectations. »

In another example, a man from the canton of Lucerne asks whether Mspy can be downloaded to a new cell phone, which he then wants to “gift”.

What precautions should you take?

First tip: be wary of phones that are no longer new and “sealed”, for example professional devices shared between colleagues, “gifts” outside their original packaging or second-hand mobiles. And always perform a hard reset in the above-mentioned cases.

Then, pay attention to the “signs”. A hot phone or shorter battery life could indicate the presence of spyware. But for Hannes Spichiger, lecturer in digital forensics at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, these signs are not a reliable indication of stalkerware.

For the expert, suspicions grow if the same individual continues to appear in unexpected places in our daily lives, and for no reason. The same if someone around us knows things they shouldn’t know.

The expert cites two scenarios in which infiltration of one’s cell phone becomes almost certain: connecting unknown devices to personal accounts or activating the camera light without having opened the application itself.

An illegal practice

Use of this software without consent is illegal. And the consequences can be considerable.

According to Monika Simmler, professor of criminal law at the University of St. Gallen, in extreme cases there is a risk of a prison sentence of up to four and a half years of detention.

The reason: Anyone who uses tracking software against the wishes of others, extracts data and decrypts a password or cell phone code can commit several offenses.

“As soon as you overcome an access barrier, that is to say you use an unjustified password, you make yourself punishable,” explains the professor.

What about parental controls?

Although Mspy claims to be a “completely legal parental control app”, legal lines can also be crossed when it comes to monitoring one’s own children.

In fact, this surveillance is permitted, because minors cannot in most cases denounce their parents.

“But things are different for young people who are already legally capable of making a judgment about what happened,” explains Monika Simmler. Because in Swiss law, a minor’s capacity for discernment is not strictly delimited by age, it is always relative.

Due to an early capacity for discernment, it is therefore conceivable that a minor could file a complaint against his parents for acts of piracy.