Jumbotrons, Spotify playlists and TripAdvisor reviews: How the unfaithful get caught by technology
Digital footprint has been revealed as a potential foe to those cheating on their partner — though some apps have changed their protocol to become an accomplice - : From EL PAIS English edition
By Marita Alonso
Hotel receipts, whiffs of perfume and lipstick stains on shirt collars were once the most common tells of infidelity, providing exceptional dramatic material for romance novels, detective movies and heartbreak anthems. But these days, technology is the worst enemy of the unfaithful. The kiss cam that unmasked Andy Bryon, CEO of Astronomer, and Kristin Cabot, the company’s director of human resources, mid-Coldplay concert serves as one example. Technology, which in theory is designed to make our lives easier, can often present its own issues — particularly to those who have been cheating.
Of course, before ruining a person’s life, technology can make it easier to have an affair in the first place. “76% of the users of the application for extramarital relationships Ashley Madison say they started their affair thanks to technology, primarily through social media and WhatsApp,” Lara Ferreiro, psychologist and couples therapy specialist, tells EL PAÍS. “Currently, 61% of infidelities are discovered through technological errors: notifications, computer search history, having left apps open. That’s why 80% of the unfaithful on that app say they use applications like Telegram and Snapchat to have safer conversations. But you have to keep in mind that 24% of couples share their geolocation,” she says.
That’s an important fact. Viki Morandeira, who coaches couples that have gone through an episode of cheating, recalls a case that puts a pin on its significance. “As many people know, today you can geolocate a device through another linked device by using an app. A woman who had doubts surrounding her spouse’s fidelity simply made use of that, and geolocated her husband’s phone in the house of their mutual friend,” she tells EL PAÍS.
Even LinkedIn, a platform being used more and more to flirt, has played a role in uncovering cheating. “A director of a multinational company received messages via LinkedIn from her husband’s lover. Because she didn’t otherwise have the woman’s contact, the lover used LinkedIn Premium to send her direct messages. She wrote to her asking her to leave her ”boyfriend," and attached screengrabs of their conversations, showing that they’d been in a relationship for nearly a year,” she says.
On the Netflix dating reality show The Ultimatum: Queer Love, it came to light that two participants had slept with women who weren’t their partners when their Spotify accounts revealed that they’d spent nights listening solely to sex playlists for weeks. “This was not only a thrillingly chaotic revelation… Whether meaning to or not, Dayna and Mel have revolutionized cheating on reality TV, with their musical footprint not only spotlighting this common aspect of modern life but offering a new way for contestants everywhere to check on their partner’s faithfulness,” wrote Joel Medina on Collider. “It broke new grounds for how to catch cheaters, and it was the perfect climax to one of the biggest dramas Netflix has ever seen.”
None of this is new. Many experts have been warning us for years that the monitoring of our own habits could become a problem for many people by encouraging certain obsessions and putting an end to intimacy. When intimacy goes away, behaviors are revealed, like infidelity. Silvia Rubies, who is the head of communication in Spain and Latin America for Gleeden, an extramarital and non-monogamous dating site, tells another surprising story: “A woman discovered her partner had been unfaithful via his Apple Watch. When she tracked it, she saw intense physical activity in the middle of nights during which he had supposedly been traveling for work,” she says. She explains that Gleeden strives for its users not to be found out through technological means. “For example, we send receipts under the name of gyms, banks or whatever each user chooses. We also have an escape button and ‘shake to exit’ feature when they are using the app on their telephone (meaning, you can shake your device to exit the app) and additionally, we offer the option to swap out our app’s logo for another in the telephone’s interface,” she explains. If in some ways, technology is the enemy of the unfaithful, in others, it is adapting to be their accomplice.
Ferreiro says that one of her clients found out about her husband’s infidelity because their young son activated Siri (“Siri, read me messages”) just when he was getting an erotic message. Siri read it aloud. “The most Dantesque case is that of the woman who put a positive evaluation of a hotel on Google Reviews — only she hadn’t gone there with her partner. Many cheaters aren’t careful at all,” she says. Rubies raises her, saying, “I remember the case of an executive who was trying to end an extramarital affair. He showed me how he constantly blocked and unblocked his mistress, because he was addicted to the dopamine rush he got from infidelity. But when he blocked her on WhatsApp, the lover started sending him $1 money transfers with messages in the description, which ended up being the way his spouse found him out. Another Mexican client discovered that her spouse was communicating with his lover through an app that simulated being a calculator, when in reality it was for encrypted messaging. They had a business together and the lover was the director of the bank branch that managed the firm’s accounts.” Private detective Rafael Guerrero, co-author of the Spanish language book Elemental, Radiografía del Detective Privado (Elemental, Radiography of the Private Detective), says that not only is our digital footprint traceable — it’s getting easier to monitor. “A partner that suspects infidelity can hire a detective to uncover proof. Keep in mind that is the only professional who is permitted in Spain to investigate private information of a personal nature. A parallel sentimental relationship has a very intense emotional component, which makes it easy to make mistakes. Those depend a lot on the kind of relationship that generates the infidelity, if its only virtual, temporary or if it’s more stable,” he says.
Platforms and applications don’t only bring to light infidelities. The victims of extramarital relationships have also found original ways to use them to send messages to their former partners. Such is the case of a woman whose boyfriend cheated on her. “My ex never stopped using my Netflix, so I changed the profile name to ‘Unfaithful’ and the settings so that he could only watch kids’ shows,” she writes on Reddit. Technology can be the perfect way of getting back at someone. You may have cheated on me, but forget about seeing the ending of Squid Game.