39% Of Mexicans Check Their Partner's Cell Phones

Digital security and privacy company Avast recently published the results of a survey of 1,000 Mexicans, asking those in a relationship if they had ever accessed their partner's phone.

The results reveal that more than two-thirds (61% men vs. 72% women) have accessed their partner's phone, and of those, 6 out of 10 (58%) people did so without permission (49% men vs. 65% women). Despite this, more than two-thirds (77%) of Mexicans who have checked their partner's phone agree that they do not have the right to access their partner's device without permission.

Of those Mexicans who accessed their partner's device, more than a third did so out of curiosity. Another 8% wanted to check where their partner had been physically at a particular time and place and 7% did so to install an app without their partner's knowledge. These numbers may seem low, but they can pose a significant problem, psychologically and even physically, for affected individuals who were spied on."

The reasons people gave for spying on their partners' devices ranged from suspicion of infidelity to simply curiosity.

"The right to privacy or intimacy applies in the same way in the physical environment as it does in the digital environment and must be respected. We have the right to non-intrusion of outsiders in our personal space. In couples it is very normalized to review messages, but if there is no consent we are talking about violence, it is not normal nor is it right, privacy is used to discover gender identity, political or religious tendencies, for example".

Two out of five couples fought over something they discovered on their partner's phone, 33% of Mexicans who spied, found evidence that their partners were hiding something. Two out of five respondents admitted to fighting over something discovered on their partner's phone.

THE FIGURES

Photo and video galleries were the most visited (50%), followed by social networking platforms such as Facebook or Instagram (46%) and texting apps (40%). Not everyone who checked their partner's device had to do so furtively; 36% knew their partner's passcode because their partner gave it to them in the past, while a third did not need it because their partner's phone was not protected by some password.

19% memorized their partner's passcode, 6% tricked their partner into unlocking their phone to gain access, and 4% used their partner's fingerprint while they were sleeping to unlock their phone or similar.