Senate bill would close legal loophole allowing ‘stalking apps’ to run secretly on cellphones

WASHINGTON – For $50, a jealous husband can download software that allows him to track his wife without her ever knowing she’s being followed.

It’s simple, it’s scary, and it may soon be against the law.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected Thursday to approve legislation that would close a legal loophole that allows so-called cyberstalking apps to run in secret on a cellphone and transmit the user’s location without the person’s knowledge.

The bill, sponsored by Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken, would update laws passed years before wireless technology revolutionized communications.

Telephone companies currently are barred from disclosing to businesses the location of people when they make a traditional phone call. But there’s no such prohibition when communicating over the Internet.