Carmen Ghia
Resident App Fanatic

Apple’s iCloud has released a new service that lets you keep up with the whereabouts of your friends. But this obviously has ominous implications when used in an, um, hostile relationship.

And now it seems that the Find My Friends app has been employed by a suspicious husband to check up on his wife–and he may have caught her redhanded.

Kashmir Hill reports at Forbes about a posting to MacRumors’ forums in which someone going by the name of ThomasMetz says he caught his wife in a lie thanks to the Find My Friends iOS app.

“I got my wife a new 4s and loaded up Find My Friends without her knowing. She told me she was at her friend’s house in the east village. I’ve had suspicions about her meeting this guy who lives uptown. Lo and behold, Find my Friends has her right there.”

ThomasMetz later posted screen shots from his phone as alleged proof.

There are actually a lot of ways to indulge your paranoia thanks to smartphones.

Find My Friends is not the only app that can do this. For example, Google’s Latitude lets you see where your friends are, and it’s available for both Android and iOS devices.

You can also do this with Find My iPhone, the iOS feature that lets you track a lost or stolen device. However, you do need to know the Apple ID email and password for the phone’s owner.

And actually, ThomasMetz didn’t even need to install an app on his wife’s phone. He could have surreptitiously signed her up for AT&T Family Map, which lets you track other members of a family plan with that carrier.

If the ThomasMetz case is real, it will be interesting to see if this evidence holds up in divorce court. Hill points out that a New Jersey court case earlier this year resulted in a ruling that it’s OK to track a cheating spouse via GPS.

I absolutely adore downloading all kinds of apps for everyday needs, like a grocery list app, or just fun game apps to pass the time, but IMHO, using them to track other people borders on invasion of privacy. Sure it can help if your phone is lost or you’ve been kidnapped, but you don’t have to be cheating to still be followed by someone who may be codependent and extremely insecure. That could turn scary