ON A WEDNESDAY morning in May, Hannah got a call from her lawyer—there was a warrant out for her husband’s arrest. Her thoughts went straight to her kids. They were going to come home from school and their father would be gone. “It burned me,” Hannah says, her voice breaking. “He hasn’t done anything to get his bond revoked, and they couldn’t prove he had.”
Hannah’s husband is now awaiting trial in jail, in part because of an anti-pornography app called Covenant Eyes. The company explicitly says the app is not meant for use in criminal proceedings, but the probation department in Indiana’s Monroe County has been using it for the past month to surveil not only Hannah’s husband but also the devices of everyone in their family. To protect their privacy, WIRED is not disclosing their surname or the names of individual family members. Hannah agreed to use her nickname.
Prosecutors in Monroe County this spring charged Hannah’s husband with possession of child sexual abuse material—a serious crime that she says he did not commit and to which he pleaded not guilty. Given the nature of the charges, the court ordered that he not have access to any electronic devices as a condition of his pretrial release from jail. To ensure he complied with those terms, the probation department installed Covenant Eyes on Hannah’s phone, as well as those of her two children and her mother-in-law.
In near real time, probation officers are being fed screenshots of everything Hannah’s family views on their devices. From images of YouTube videos watched by her 14-year-old daughter to online underwear purchases made by her 80-year-old mother-in-law, the family’s entire digital life is scrutinized by county authorities. “I’m afraid to even communicate with our lawyer,” Hannah says. “If I mention anything about our case, I’m worried they are going to see it and use it against us.”
Covenant Eyes is part of a multimillion-dollar market of “accountability” apps sold to churches and parents as a tool to police online activity. For a monthly fee, the app monitors every single thing a user does on their devices, then sends the data it collects, including screenshots, to an “ally” or “accountability partner,” who can review the user’s online activities.
Hellbound and Down 