Inappropriate Uses of Computer Monitoring Spy Software

Domestic violence is a terrifying reality for women and children across the United states. Millions of women are physically abused by their husbands or partners each year.

The effects of domestic violence are severe and devastating, and the physical injuries such as broken bones, bruises, and burns are only the visible consequences. Victims of domestic violence also miss work due to their injuries and can ultimately lose their jobs as a result of the violence against them. Battered women often have trouble establishing independent lives due to poor credit, rental, and employment histories resulting from their abuse.

Unfortunately for victims of domestic violence, there are no easy escapes. Battered women often face increased violence when they attempt to flee their abusers. The severity of this "separation violence" often compels women to stay in abusive relationships rather than risk greater injury to themselves or their children. Many of those who succeed in leaving their abuser live in constant fear of being found.

This constant fear of being found is only exasperated by the potential for a victim's abuser to use computer monitoring spy software to gain access to information that makes being found significantly easier.

Spy software provides abusers with yet another tool to control and instill constant fear in the minds of victims of domestic violence. Spy software gives abusers the ability to monitor all the electronic communications of their victims, including Internet activity, passwords, and private e-mail communications.

By using spy software, abusers can easily gain access to information from their victim's computer that will provide them with enough information to locate a victim who may have escaped from her abuser, discover a victim's intentions to leave in the near future, or prevent a victim from establishing or attempting to establish her life outside of the abusive relationship.

Spy software is an especially insidious and devastating tool because it attacks the ability of victims to use the Internet, an important source of accessible and anonymous information for victims of abuse. As the proliferation of spy software continues and access to such technology becomes easier for batterers to obtain, the danger to victims of domestic violence increases exponentially.

The threat to victims caused by the use of spy software is real, regardless of whether or not the victim has managed to flee from her abuser. An abuser needs only to gain access to a victim's computer one time to secretly install a spy software program to compromise a victim's personal information and put a victim in severe danger.

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