Divorce Lawyer Warnings: You Are Likely Being Tracked

It is common to worry that internet companies are learning everything there is to know about you and that there is essentially no privacy, but perhaps the more realistic threat is from a divorce lawyer.  Many companies are generally gathering information on you to sell to advertisers so that they may more efficiently allocate their advertising dollars.  It is generally though that any such companies are not going to use this information against you, as if they had a specific and targeted goal of hurting just you. 

It is likely not a good idea to make such a safe bet with your spouse and the divorce lawyer that they hire.  The idea that your spouse is able to get access to your passwords, gain control of your phone, copy your computer hard drives, see everything that you do on the internet, should not be taken lightly.  Moreover, your spouse will likely be able to use any information that they find against you to tear you down in court, which could have lasting consequences.

The logical and emotional barriers to such eavesdropping by your spouse are simple and easy for your spouse to justify: Relationships can be viewed as a business, and employers often have the right to monitor their employees’ activity.  This can lead your spouse to a number of new eavesdropping tools, such as software that can be installed on your computer to capture a couple of times per minute exactly what you are doing online.  Other sophisticated, yet increasingly inexpensive, methods of your spouse collecting data on you to give to a divorce lawyer include installing tracking devices in your vehicle to keep updated exactly where you travel, and getting control of your passwords.

A big question, however, is whether such information is admissible in a court.  Every state has different rules on what information can be used (or even if whether it is criminally legal to do so), and so it is probably best that you check with your local divorce attorney before employing any steps to spy on your spouse.  Generally, one of the things that are completely inadmissible is communications between an attorney and their client.

Even without any proactive steps to gather surreptitiously information on you, your divorce lawyer is still well-equipped to get a lot of information on you that you post on the internet.  In fact, it is often possible that you will have to turn such content over to your spouse or their attorney.  In other words, an attorney could be allowed to force you to turn over internet posts, copies of your hard drive, and any emails in your possession.  In the end, you will likely make your attorney a lot happier by not leaving digital traces of where you have been so that you may be best protected in a process that can be severely adversarial.

The above material is intended for information purposes only.  It is not intended as professional legal advice and should not be construed as such.