What is snooping, this (bad) couple habit that can cost you dearly?

4 out of 10 French people have already searched their partner’s phone: this is the main information that emerges from an Ifop study published in mid-May 2023. This (bad) habit is mainly the prerogative of women since 67% of elderly French women aged 35 and under admit to having already succumbed to temptation…

Problem: searching the phone of his companion / his companion (what the British call “snooping”) is now punishable by law. Indeed: if “digital espionage” may seem perfectly harmless, it is indeed a domestic cyberviolence which can be part of a context of influence and/or domination by one partner over the other.

Digital espionage is not trivial: it is a form of domestic violence

Thus, according to Ifop, more than half (52%) of people who have repeatedly suffered physical violence from their partner say that he/she has already looked in their mobile phone without their knowledge. And 35% of victims of domestic violence physical have already had their phone confiscated by their spouse…

Snooping has already caused arguments among 31% of young people aged 25 and under. In addition, 26% of those under 25 fear “regularly“of being spied on by their partner, and 25% believe that their current partner”does not respect their digital privacy“.

I regularly search my partner’s phone, what am I risking? The law against domestic violence (of 2020) punishes “digital espionage” of the spouse with 1 year’s imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros. It is therefore a very bad habit to which it is imperative to put an end!

Source : Ifop