Ever feel like the eye of the Almighty is watching your every move? You may be more correct than you realize.
But who’s watching may not be God himself — just your church officials. Some churches have recently been busted monitoring their members’ internet use.
They do it by getting you to install spyware on your devices.
Also known as “shameware,” these apps do pretty much what any spyware apps do. They allow the church to monitor what you do on your phone, tablet, or computer.
And Lord help you if they catch you sinning! You can bet there’ll be a stern talking-to at the next church meeting — if you don’t get an email with incriminating screenshots right away.
Seems even God needs a bit of help from morally questionable technology.
Eyes on You
One of the churches using shameware is Gracepoint, an evangelical Southern Baptist church. Their spying habits were recently revealed in a Wired report.
The app Gracepoint used is called Covenant Eyes. It’s part of the wider industry of accountability apps — some of which have perfectly legit uses.
This software category includes, for example, parental monitoring apps that allow parents to check and restrict what websites their children are using. While some claim that such apps are a violation of children’s rights, it’s hard to deny there are websites you don’t want your kids to see.
But the question of personal rights becomes more pronounced with church-sanctioned shameware. After all, adults should be able to view whatever they want on the web — within legal limits, of course.
Gracepoint doesn’t agree, though. The church wants to keep its adherents away from sin, even by spying and blackmail.
Covenant Eyes is primarily marketed as an anti-pornography app. According to its developer, the app is smart enough to understand if the two mounds on the screen are breasts or something else.
If it detects porn, the app sends a notification to the host. They can then bring the matter up with the offending worshipper.
The problem is that Covenant Eyes monitors much more than porn usage. Wired’s tests revealed that it reports your Amazon shopping habits, social media use, and read articles, among other things.
God’s Helping App
One person who fell victim to Covenant Eyes is Hao-Wei Lin. When he admitted his homosexuality to Gracepoint church leader, he expected to be kicked out.
Only, that didn’t happen. The church leader said God still loved Lin and would help him “in his struggle with same-sex attraction.”
And that help came in the form of Covenant Eyes. Lin installed the app on his phone at the church leader’s request.
Within a month, he began receiving probing and accusatory emails from the church. The messages asked if Lin had anything he’d like to tell the church leader.
Attached to them were reports of everything Lin had browsed on the internet. The screenshots and logs included web searches, Amazon shopping receipts, and things that Lin had looked at for a second and then completely forgotten about.
Lin has since left Gracepoint. However, in his own words, his still trying to get over the trauma of constant monitoring.
We’re Not a Cult!
In a small relief, at least there’s some action being taken against shameware apps. Wired shared its report with Google, and the company didn’t like what it saw.
As a result, Covenant Eyes and another monitoring app, Accountable2You, have been pulled from the Android Play Store. According to Google, they violated its content policies.
But will Gracepoint and other similarly nosy faith organizations soon find another monitoring solution? It’s quite possible, considering their past behavior.
Look, all we’re saying is that one version of Gracepoint’s website had to clarify that the church is totally not a cult.
“Cults teach strange things, they try to control your life and forbid you to leave,” the archived version of the site reads.
Because monitoring your members’ internet use 24/7 is absolutely not an attempt to control their lives.
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