Snooping in divorce cases in Singapore goes high-tech: media

SINGAPORE (Xinhua) - Couples involved in divorce cases in Singapore are increasingly resorting to illegal snooping to obtain incriminating information against their spouses, local daily Straits Times reported on Sunday.
 
To get the upper hand, some spouses hire computer experts to hack into e-mail accounts or plant spyware in laptops and smartphones, as most of the evidence used in divorce cases these days comes from high-tech devices such as mobile phones and computers.

"In the past, it was the traditional documents and letters, but now, with technology and social media, as many as eight in 10 cases involve computer-generated evidence," family lawyer Rajan Chettiar was quoted as saying.

The newspaper reported on a case in which a technician husband filed a counter claim accusing his wife of having an affair after she filed for divorce.

Earlier this month, High Court Judge Quentin Loh asked the Attorney-General's Chambers to investigate allegations that lawyers had advised a woman client to hire a hacker to get into her husband's laptop.

The court took "a very dim view of solicitors who sanction, let alone encourage, their clients' involvement in such illicit activities as hacking," he said.

The number of non-Muslim divorces hit 7,525 last year, the second-highest annual figure on record.

Lawyer Gloria James-Civetta said she has handled about six cases so far this year in which her clients fell prey to hacking. She used to encounter only one or two such cases a year in the past. She has also refused to represent five prospective clients who presented illegally obtained information about their spouses' affairs or assets this year.

Some of the lawyers have seen clients asking them how to hire hackers, or how to get their spouses to delete materials obtained through underhanded means.

Under the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act, a person can be fined or jailed for accessing a computer to retrieve data or programs without permission. It is a crime to hack into someone's computer regardless of whether the other party has suffered any harm. However, there may be grey areas.

"If the wife has previously given her husband her password to her mobile phone or if he happens to see something by chance when she leaves it around, does it count as hacking?" lawyer Lee Terk Yang said.

When a client presents evidence against her spouse, some lawyers accept it. Others feel they ought to probe deeper.

"I am satisfied with taking the information at face value instead of questioning the clients on whether they got it illegally," Lee said.

Koh Tien Hua, who co-heads a law firm's family and matrimonial law practice, said he would ask his clients if the accessed smartphone, laptop or other devices belong to them. "If they bought it and used it most of the time, or if it is a shared computer, it should not be considered as trespassing," he said.

James-Civetta said that if she suspected the other party was using illegally obtained information against her client, she would object in court or try to prove it was retrieved inappropriately.

She felt it would be helpful to have guidelines for dealing with evidence obtained illegally, such as those in place in countries such as Britain. Others said raising public awareness that such behaviour is illegal and relying on lawyers to do the right thing were enough.