OWOSSO, Mich. — Wired magazine has published an in-depth report about the secretive world of surveillance apps marketed as “porn filters” to churchgoers across America by faith-based corporations.
Penned by Wired’s Security section reporter Dhruv Mehrotra, the piece focuses on Michigan-based niche market leader Covenant Eyes.
As XBIZ reported three years ago, Covenant Eyes is the brainchild of religious activist Ron DeHaas. The startup offers what it calls “accountability software” from a small office in Owosso, Michigan, somewhere in the economically ravaged expanse between Flint and Lansing.
Fast-forward to 2022 and, as Wired reported today, Covenant Eyes is now “part of a multimillion-dollar ecosystem of so-called accountability apps that are marketed to both churches and parents as tools to police online activity. For a monthly fee, some of these apps monitor everything their users see and do on their devices, even taking screenshots (at least one per minute, in the case of Covenant Eyes) and eavesdropping on web traffic.”
These church-endorsed and -marketed apps, Mehrotra wrote, “then report a feed of all of the users’ online activity directly to a chaperone — an ‘accountability partner,’ in the apps’ parlance.”
After Wired presented its findings to Google, the article reports, the search giant “determined that two of the top accountability apps — Covenant Eyes and Accountable2You — violate its policies.”
A Faith-Based Product Unable to Catch a Religious Predator
As XBIZ reported, the Arkansas trial of ex-reality TV personality Josh Duggar, former director of the lobbying arm of the religiously motivated anti-porn Family Research Council, exposed the failure of for-profit, religiously inspired “porn filter” Covenant Eyes.
Duggar was sentenced in May to 12 years in prison for downloading child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The sentencing memo, by Assistant U.S. Atty. Dustin Roberts, described Duggar — who actively campaigned against legal, consensual, adult pornography for the well-funded Family Research Council lobby — as having “a deep-seated, pervasive and violent sexual interest in children.”
Last year, People magazine reported that federal investigators found that Covenant Eyes had been installed on Duggar’s computer so that it could monitor and report his internet use to his wife, Anna.
“According to Covenant Eyes’ website,” People noted, “the program is an ‘accountability software’ that is meant to protect users from objectionable content and help monitor the screen activity of those with porn addictions. The software ‘periodically captures screenshots,’ which are then analyzed by artificial intelligence and sent to a trusted ‘ally’ who can hold the user accountable for their internet usage.”
During a May 2021 detention hearing, however, an investigator reported that “Covenant Eyes was unable to detect Duggar’s internet usage after a password-protected network was installed on his computer.”
Spyware + Churches = ‘Shameware’
Today’s Wired article reported the story of Hao-Wei Lin, a former member of evangelical Southern Baptist church Gracepoint. “Within a month of installing the app,” Mehrotra wrote, “he started receiving accusatory emails from his church leader referencing things he had viewed online. ‘Anything you need to tell me?’ reads one email Hao-Wei Lin shared with WIRED. Attached was a report from Covenant Eyes that detailed every single piece of digital content Hao-Wei Lin had consumed the prior week.”
The Gracepoint church leader “zeroed in on a single piece of content that Covenant Eyes had flagged as ‘Mature’: Hao-Wei Lin had searched ‘#Gay’ on a website called Statigr.am, and the app had flagged it.”
“I wouldn’t quite call it spyware,” another former member of Gracepoint told Wired. “It’s more like ‘shameware,’ and it’s just another way the church controls you.”
To read “The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps,” visit Wired.com.