Kids used to spy on parents

WARRING parents are using drones and turning their children into unwitting spies by stashing spyware in their toys to covertly collect evidence for custody cases, the Office of the eSafety Commissioner warns.

The eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said spyware had been put into keyrings and bags given to children “and then used for surveillance purposes”.

“This is clearly abusive,’’ she told a parliamentary inquiry into family law.

“Some children are pressured to record a parent or grandparents and to pass the information to the other party.

“In numerous cases, children are given technological gifts, such as computers and telephones, which contain spyware or tracking apps.”

Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee chairwoman Sarah Henderson said the law had not kept up with technology. “The use of covert recordings ... must not be abusive and reform may be required, particularly when it comes to involving children in covert activities,’’ she said.

Queensland Nationals MP George Christensen thinks hitech spying is useful in proving child abuse, but Labor MP Sharon Claydon slammed it as “creepy and exploitative”.

Mr Christensen said some parents could use spyware to detect and prove child abuse. “What’s the greater wrong – abusing a child or abusing someone’s privacy to find out the abuse is going on and tak- ing it to authorities,’’ he said yesterday. Committee deputy chairwoman Ms Claydon said some people were using drones to “drop in on exes and monitor their every movement’’.

Ms Inman Grant called on the federal government to clarify how covertly obtained evidence could be used in cases.