Automation apps can enable dating abuse
MADISON (WKOW) — Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that automation apps, like iPhone’s ‘shortcuts’, can be a vehicle potential abusers use to control their partner’s activities on their mobile device.
Rahul Chatterjee, an assistant professor of computer science at UW and founder of the Madison Tech Clinic, said Madison Tech Clinic helps individuals who have been virtually stalked or harassed by their partners.
Chatterjee said they had one client whose phone would not allow them to open an app.
“We found out that it was a shortcut,” Chatterjee said. “As a shortcut, someone’s installed it, and you can’t use certain apps because of that.”
Chatterjee was referring to iPhone’s ‘shortcuts’ app, which is already preinstalled. If a potential abuser has direct access or their partner’s password, they can program their partner’s device to do certain things at certain times.
“If they have access to your device, they can know your location, know your last taken photos, your screenshots, who is messaging you,” said Shirley Zang, a Ph.D. student at UW and one of the project’s researchers.
This issue of dating abuse is not confined to Madison. Videos circulating online are teaching others how to create these shortcuts.
“It was a detailed video that someone can easily follow,” said Chatterjee. “And it doesn’t take, it’s probably two, three clicks, and you can actually create a shortcut to spy on someone. And that was the scary part, and it was viewed by hundreds of millions.”
The researchers are developing an online service to detect these shortcuts and hope to eventually make it available to the public.
