Spyware, once primarily used by intelligence agencies and nation-states, has become a tool of intimate partner abuse, quietly deployed against people – mostly women – who have no idea they are being watched.
In an age when our phones know our location and hold our most private conversations, a disturbing form of abuse has found a foothold worldwide. In April, news emerged that thousands of men had flocked to groups on the messaging app Telegram to buy commercial spyware designed to covertly monitor their partners. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has flagged technology-facilitated abuse as a concern, including use of spyware in coercive control and cyberstalking, warning the public of the tactic and providing support for frontline workers and survivors. But more can be done to address this systemic threat hiding inside Australia’s domestic violence crisis.
Spyware is malicious software that covertly monitors a device’s activity, collecting information without the user’s knowledge and sending the data to an unauthorised entity. Highly invasive spyware allows unlimited access with little or no trace, making it almost impossible for the user to know what data was taken.
Infection methods range from deceptive links to zero-click attacks, where a device can be compromised without any user interaction. Once spyware is installed, the software can be used to track a victim’s location; access conversations, even on end-to-end encrypted apps; read emails; and activate the infected device’s microphone to listen to nearby conversations. Capabilities once reserved for intelligence services have now been commercialised, making them available to anyone with an internet connection, means of digital payment and motive.
The spyware market is growing, enabling structural gendered abuse. Findings published in 2024 by research group Citizen Lab highlight how technology is used as a tool of control in transnational repression by authoritarian regimes including Iran, China, Russia and Azerbaijan. This resonates with ASPI’s 2022 findings on the Chinese Communist Party’s covert campaigns against Asian women whose work focuses on China.
The campaigns are aimed at journalists and human rights defenders, exploiting gendered stigma and using threats about bodies and sexuality to shame, intimidate and silence targets.
Data harvested through spyware is weaponised to enable blackmail; public exposure of personal information, also known as ‘doxxing’; cyber-stalking; and harassment and intimidation. This effect is compounded when attacks target minorities who already face discrimination. The psychological effect can lead targets to withdraw from public life and self-censor.
The motive of control also appears in the domestic realm. Research published by AI Forensics in March analysed 2.8 million messages across 16 Telegram groups, uncovering a thriving economy of digital abuse, including advertisements for professional hacking services to access phone gallery, infiltrate social media and enable automated spying bots. More than 18,000 references to surveillance tools appeared alongside more than 82,000 abusive images and videos.
Commercially available tools such as Spyic and CocoSpy can transform any smartphone into a surveillance device, tracking location, messages, calls and photos in real time. However, these tools may also be prone to data breaches.
Australia has its own evidence of the problem. In 2022, the Australian Federal Police charged a man over spyware that had been sold to buyers around the world. The AFP alleged the man had sold the spyware to more than 14,500 individuals across 128 countries, with 201 buyers identified in Australia. Fourteen Australian purchasers were named as respondents on domestic violence orders, and 11 of those identified individuals bought the tool during the active period of a domestic violence order or within two years of one being issued.
In 2022, the federal government announced A$104 million for domestic violence support with A$55 million invested to provide technology support such as wiping GPS tracking from victims’ phones and removing hidden cameras from their homes. The country’s Online Safety Act and state-based legislation prohibit sharing of images or videos without consent. While it’s not unlawful to purchase spyware in Australia, it is a crime to install the tools. This distinction is difficult to police at scale and places the burden of proof on victims rather than on the market that supplies perpetrators.
Individuals can take practical steps to prevent spyware planting. These include keeping devices updated, paying close attention to any unusual changes in how a device performs and enabling lockdown mode – a feature designed to prevent cyberattacks at the expense of some functionality – on certain devices. But individual vigilance cannot substitute for policy. The AFP’s 2022 spyware investigation required years of work and coordination across a dozen international agencies to bring a single developer to account, demonstrating that the current framework is not built for the volume or the urgency of the threat.
More widely, commercial spyware should face stricter import and distribution controls. Vendors should be required to demonstrate legitimate-use cases as well as the security of their data. Law enforcement agencies need dedicated resourcing to address technology-facilitated abuse with proactive intelligence capabilities. National security agencies should also engage more intensively with organisations supporting victims of domestic violence, as these groups often hold early intelligence on emerging surveillance tools being used against clients.