Mobile spy software use almost always illegal, says expert

Vervata managing director Atir Raihan told OUT-LAW that the technology does have legal uses. "We suggest many other uses such as cost monitoring, theft recovery, SMS archiving, child abuse prevention," he said. "The onus on the legality is from the person who installs it. There are many products which are sold and can be used for legal and illegal purposes and the manufacturer of the product is not liable."

The Home Office confirmed that Vervata was not committing an offence under RIPA.

"Vervata are a completely legitimate and law abiding company, and we will never do anything that breaks any law," said Raihan. "If we are credibly advised that we are directly breaking any law, we will immediately take the appropriate action to comply."

The software has been designated as a virus by anti-virus firm F-Secure. " When Flexispy.A is installed on the phone it will hide from [operating system] Symbian's built in process menu and it does not have any visible user interface or icon," said an anti-virus warning from the firm. "After installation the application will immediately go into hiding and locks its files so that the application uninstaller cannot remove it."

"There is absolutely no way that someone could install this without knowing what it is," said Raihan. "We also make it very difficult to send the software by Bluetooth or Infra Red. Because of this, Flexispy is not a virus nor trojan horse."