Your ex always seems one step ahead in divorce negotiations? They might be digitally spying on you. From email forwarding to WhatsApp monitoring - learn how abusers exploit technology and what you can do about it. In this episode, Tamsin is joined by Danny Franks, a cyber security expert to discuss the issues and how to protect yourself.
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Danny Franks
Danny Franks, also known as "Danny the I.T. Man," is an experienced executive with the ability for helping people. He kicked off his entrepreneurial journey in 2002 by starting a Managed Service Provider business provide IT support to businesses in and around Greater Manchester. In 2014, he took things up a notch by acquiring a telephony company, and he successfully sold both businesses in 2018.
Danny is all about paying attention to detail and making sure everything is just right. A year ago, he launched Blaze Hill, a company dedicated to providing discreet help to those dealing with computer and technical issues. His thorough approach ensures that every client gets excellent and diligent service.
Tamsin Caine
Tamsin is a Chartered Financial Planner with over 20 years experience. She works with couples and individuals who are at the end of a relationship and want agree how to divide their assets FAIRLY without a fight.
You can contact Tamsin at tamsin@smartdivorce.co.uk or arrange a free initial meeting using https://bit.ly/SmDiv15min. She is also part of the team running Facebook group Separation, Divorce and Dissolution UK
Tamsin Caine MSc., FPFS
Chartered Financial Planner
Smart Divorce Ltd
P.S. I am the co-author of “My Divorce Handbook – It’s What You Do Next That Counts”, written by divorce specialists and lawyers writing about their area of expertise to help walk you through the divorce process. You can buy it by scanning the QR code…
Transcript
(The transcript has been created by an AI, apologies for any mistakes)
Tamsin Caine:
Welcome to series 10 of the Smart Divorce Podcast. During this series, we're going to be speaking about the difficult subject of domestic abuse. Unfortunately, during my work, I come across people who are victim survivors of domestic abuse on a far too regular basis. So we're going to be talking to those who have survived themselves, to professionals working in this area, to solicitors, to hopefully help you to find the right support if you're in that situation. This is an issue that's not going away. So if you're going through this or you know anybody who is, I really hope this series helps you. Thanks for listening.
Tamsin Caine:
Hello and welcome to today's Smart Divorce Podcast, and I'm really chuffed to be joined today by a very old friend, my friend Danny Franks, who we met doing networking a very, very long time ago and recently realised that some of the work that Danny does could be massively helpful to you out there. So I'm going to ask Danny to introduce you and I'm thinking he's going to use a slightly different introduction to the one he used when he introduced himself to me all those years ago. So welcome, Danny. Thanks for joining me.
Danny Franks:
Hi, tamsin, good to see you again.
Tamsin Caine:
And you, can you tell us a little bit about you and your business and the sort of work that you do?
Danny Franks:
So the work that I do is general technical IT, helping people secure their networks and their technology, and I suppose in the last six, 12 months I've been focusing on individuals helping individuals with their technology, home IT, home businesses. And then recently I've been asked by some individuals to help them understand their own technology because some strange things have been happening with their technology or their information.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and it's at this point that we, that we felt, felt that we might have some um, some things in common and some things you could, you could help our listeners with. So during this series we've talked a lot about domestic abuse, and we know that one of the ways in which victim survivors are targeted is by the perpetrator having sight of their IT, having tracking devices, and I know that's something that you've worked with a number of people on recently. So could you tell us a little bit about how those people have come to you and about what you can do if an individual suspects there is tracking on their devices?
Danny Franks:
Okay so, I was referred some months ago by a friend of mine who I was looking after their technology, saying can you help out a friend of mine? She's not really good on the technology, she just wants some help like logging into accounts, saving new passwords and just transferring over certain information so she could become more independent with her technology from her partner. Now, at that time I didn't know she was going through a divorce, but it became quite apparent when I was working with her on the first visit that there were forwarders on a mail, there was shared accounts whereby she didn't know the passwords to those shared accounts, and some of her own accounts she didn't know the passwords to, which she thought strange, but she didn't think anything of it because she thought she'd just forgotten about it. And so as time went on, we realized that some of the emails were being forwarded. Well, not some of the emails, a lot of it. All her emails were being forwarded to her partner and anything incoming or outgoing was being surveilled by her partner.
Danny Franks:
At which point there was a bit of a red flag and I said we need to stop this. Did you know about this? And she came back and said "I wondered why he was always one step ahead of me when it came to negotiations, speaking to my lawyer, so I can't say I fell into this sort of work, but it's the first time I've come across work or a client whereby they've not been hacked. It's almost a soft hack. So when somebody's systems goes down and they don't know who it is and they've got ransomware, then that's very different than this, because they're being targeted from the inside and they don't know about it. So I was able to identify the issues and rectify them.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, absolutely. In those sorts of situations is it a question of having to set up brand new accounts and having to almost start from scratch? Are there things that can be done with existing accounts?
Danny Franks:
Interestingly, the second client that I came across with this sort of thing.
Danny Franks:
We set up a completely new account for her to liaise with her solicitor on, because we thought it might have been how can I say in her interest for her other half to understand, how can I say to lead them down, not lead them down the garden path, but let them have other information so that you know she was aware of it. She said I don't want to actually block this off, but I want a new account, I want to make sure it's secure, I want to change all my personal access to my new email account, and it was just going through them and just ensuring that all of that was happening. So it wasn't as straightforward as I thought. As you've just suggested, yeah, dead easy, just get the account back, rename it. This was more of my second client, whereby they just wanted to almost manage the situation in a different way let's put it like that whereby they then had a new email address which they were then liaising with their solicitor
Tamsin Caine:
and have you come across anybody who's got trackers put on their so kind of other?
Tamsin Caine:
I guess you know we all think WhatsApp, I guess, is the big example, because we all think that's pretty safe and secure, because we all think it's.
Danny Franks:
It's encrypted. It's point-to-point encrypted.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, when it goes from one to another, but I know there's been instances of people having trackers on their hardware that seem to be able to track those sorts of things as well, so are you able to help with that?
Danny Franks:
So with WhatsApp, again, it's fairly easy to reset up if you get the user's phone. Now, if there's any preemptive thought to what somebody else is doing, they can quite easily set up a WhatsApp account, or should I say shared WhatsApp, on their PC or their laptop or their desktop of their partner, without the partner really knowing to see the messages coming in and going out. And that isn't a bit of software, that's just WhatsApp itself. There's some Find Me software which is part of Google, which can be enabled, which is buried a couple of layers down within the software, where it just is turned on. So again, that can be easily done if somebody has the right knowledge to be able to turn it on on their partner's phone and say I'm tracking you.
Danny Franks:
There's nothing that pops up each day to say your phone is being tracked or you are being tracked. So the user wouldn't really have knowledge of that being tracked. So the user wouldn't really have knowledge of that. And if the partner has been the one that looks after the technology, look after the phones, it's quite easy for them to do that in a way that isn't going to be suspicious. You know, you know it can be all premeditated, it can all be preplanned, and if they've got a history of, you know, controlling their partner, then this might be something that's been going on for a long time. So you know it's been able to identify that sort of um action that's been taken on the phones as well. You know quite early on. So you don't necessarily need to install any specific software.
Tamsin Caine:
The software is already on the phone, uh for for for somebody to get access to it yeah, it's about having those, those um pieces of software on a different like replicated on a different device and that information just feeds straight through to it correct and the end user doesn't necessarily know.
Danny Franks:
So I suppose if you were to set up whatsapp on your desktop, um, you would be able to see the whatsapp messages both on phone and on your desktop, but you don't get notified on your phone to say it's coming through to your desktop as well.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, absolutely. So what can you do about that then, because that's really frightening that that can be going on without your knowledge at all.
Danny Franks:
So it's just being aware. I mean you can check on your WhatsApp what devices are connected. You can check your Google locations. You know whether you're sharing your locations. You can check if there's any forwarders on your emails going to any other accounts and any diverts on any emails going out. So there's some things that you can check quite easily. And then you know you should also be aware of software which you know you're not familiar with or apps on your phone that you're not familiar with. But as most of us have got over 50 or 60 apps on our phones, sometimes very difficult to sift through, you know which ones you've put on recently and those that you've put on years ago, those that have transferred from an old device to those that somebody else might have put on to track you. So it can be challenging, but it's a case of understanding your own technology, being aware of. You know the devices that you use, having some control on that and ensuring that you know what you're doing or get some help to know what you're doing.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, absolutely. And if you're it's the same with the people that I work with who aren't used to looking after their own money If you're not particularly technologically can't speak um savvy, then you do need somebody to to help you out, don't you? And that's where you come in, I guess. So what would the process be that you would go through if you were approached by somebody who who wanted to check out whether they were being tracked, whether emails were being forwarded, etc.
Danny Franks:
So what would the process be when I first met them? Or they'd give me a call, so initially it'd be a call. The way that it has happened is it's fairly straightforward I call, I go and see the client. I don't work remotely. I pretty much have a look at their laptops and their mobile phones and any other devices that they've got, you know, see if it's connected to home heating or CCTV or music systems, because they can play a part as well. You know whereby the partner might be setting alarms or setting systems to come on during the day and the partner doesn't know how to work the music system or turn the CCTV on or off, and so on and so forth.
Danny Franks:
So it's basically doing a mini audit, but a soft audit, just to talk through, understand any of the concerns my clients have got regarding the data, regarding how they use it, and then just walking them through each of the products that they use. If they're really not happy with how can I say how they're feeling, we can reinstall the machine, put new passwords on it, reinstall the software, give them a new gmail account or email account sorry, gmail query outlook and start afresh so that they are completely separate from their partners. Um, how can say technology world?
Tamsin Caine:
and they can start again and I guess I'm thinking about kind of so I live with my two kids, I've got my personal phone, I've got a work phone, I've got a laptop you know lots of people have ipads and then, of course, there's the kids technology in the house which is easily accessible by the ex, probably more so in the technology belonging to themselves. So it's I guess it's looking at everything in the household, is that?
Danny Franks:
it's understanding the technology landscape of pretty much everything in in in the home and within the family um, what connects to what? What accounts are being shared? So I I do know people do share their Apple Cloud accounts because they get a better deal on data. It's that sort of thing. What's going on on Netflix, what's going on on Prime, and so on and so forth. So all of these things have got to be untangled so that the person, when they split up, have got complete control of their own digital lives and not depending on anybody else for it.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, absolutely. One of my clients who I was speaking to this morning, her ex-husband has control over when her electric car charges.
Danny Franks:
Okay.
Tamsin Caine:
And you know there's even things like that. So much is controlled from our mobile phone. You just have no. You know, if you're separated from a coercive and controlling person and that's the behavior that you've had in the relationship post-separation they can use these apps, can't they, to create havoc and and still have a control over, over the lives of the if the person they're separated from so it's interesting what you say about that, because it's, I suppose it's.
Danny Franks:
One thing I haven't come across is the is the when can you charge your car app. But again, each, each time I speak to people, other things get added into the mix. So this portfolio of products and services that are being shared by each other that you've got to split up is another item on the checklist to go. And what about this? What about, as well as the heating, the CCTV, the alarm systems, the so-and-so for the car? Car charging is another thing. But also, I suppose, is you know the access to the records for that vehicle Once the separation has gone through, and say I want that all the electronic information on that to come to me and it is in a separate account that you, you know your partner's not got any access to.
Danny Franks:
So it's you know, this digital footprint that we've got has got to be separated and there will be things that you know. We I don't say we can't always know everything about everyone all the time with regard to the data and their apps that they're using. It does become fairly apparent after some time. You think, ah yes, what about, for example, the car charger? Or what about the heating, because the heating is coming on at strange times, or it's not coming on or it goes on, it goes off. So it is getting control of that and how to separate the accounts out, or just understanding that that sort of thing is happening and until you're no longer living in the same home, what you can and can't do, I suppose it's understanding the limitations of the software that you've got as well.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, absolutely. I think this is a really interesting subject and it's not something that I thought of before. But actually, even even outside an abusive relationship, even in any normal relationship, these still, these things still still need to be dealt with, don't they? These things don't separate it, and you know, we talk about finances, we talk about the who's having the Westlife CD and who's having the whatever books, but this is something that is it's something that I've not thought about, but this is something that is it's something that I've not thought about. Maybe other people have, but it's something that I've not thought about in terms of my clients and the work that they need to do. Now, I know you said you work with people and it needs to be in person. So what sort of radius do you cover? What's the areas that you work in?
Danny Franks:
Okay, so I was going to say, relatively speaking, it is North Cheshire leading into Manchester. So you know all the way up to Hale, Altrincham and Brown, to Sale, coming around Northern Moor and Stockport and then the rest of it coming round into Wilmslow, Alderley Edge, Macclesfield, that sort of area. So again, what I'm trying to be is quite focused. So I'm not dealing with a client staying Carlisle, because sometimes it can be very difficult to give that response.
Danny Franks:
Yes, I can do remote work and we all do so much remote work. But I think when it's quite sensitive it's a lot easier to work with somebody on a one-to-one on their equipment that we've got and especially trying to work across the number of devices that people have. It's not necessarily just a desktop. So it's important for me to be available to those clients to say I've got an issue with this or do you know that new password was set up? It's just not saving on my machine and I really need that every day and I can sit with them and I can go through them with authentication on their mobile phones and so on and so forth. So it's not a one solution fits all. I think it's very bespoke for each person that I'm seeing.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, yeah, important, very important work. So a lot of our listeners will be outside of your geographical circle. How would they go about finding the right person? Like I wouldn't have a clue where to start googling somebody to do the sort of work that you, that you do? Where where do they start? What are they looking for?
Danny Franks:
so so, um, I I would think that, um, I mean, I was found through recommendation and I think that is one way to do it and I think it's probably the best way, because the recommendation from a personal friend to me was saying, yeah, this is personal interest, Danny will look after you. I don't want to say, go and have a look at this particular trustor trader, find an IT man, because you don't know who they are or who they know, whereas if you know somebody within your social circle or ask around with your friends and you keep that quite tight because, again, confidentiality is quite important you know, or you know if, if the solicitor knows somebody as well that can advise in the same way as they may be able to advise somebody to do the finances, to do year end and so on and so forth. So it's finding a trusted IT person that you know outside of, outside of that area.
Danny Franks:
You know that I work
Tamsin Caine:
so you're looking for somebody who provides IT support? Essentially is yeah, but but obviously being careful, because what you don't want to do is alert the perpetrator to what's happening. So obviously being careful about who you ask, I guess.
Danny Franks:
Correct. And I think if I said to you I'm quite curious and inquisitive when I speak to somebody and I'm quite probing, you might get some IT guys who go, yeah, see, the problem, fix it, come away and go, I've not thought about your heating or your car or your CCTV, they just go all right, I've taken the folders off your email, there you go, off, you go, you'll be safe now. But they've not looked at the wider picture. So that IT person has got to fit the role of what they're trying to do, rather than just have a small remit and be, yeah, I'll sort your IT out. I can't help you with your car because I'm driving an electric car. I can't help you with X, y, z because I'm not in that remit.
Danny Franks:
I think it needs somebody who is inquisitive, who can go out and say, listen, I don't know your particular CCTV system, but I can go and find out. I can come back, I can find out whether you can get dual access, whether that access can be separated and then revert back. And even though CCTV isn't part of the IT remit, they can help them with it. It's it's it's being able to take them, you know, in the whole journey for, for for that technology separation, I suppose
Tamsin Caine:
yeah, we almost need to clone Danny's across the UK or um.
Tamsin Caine:
Failing that, I build some kind of network, don't we have people who can, who can do this kind of work and understand the breadth of it? Because, you know, it started off we were talking about email forwarding and actually it's so much wider than that, isn't it?
Danny Franks:
it has grown, you know, and and it is a lot wider um and you know, and I suppose the other, the other bit of information is you know, the digital stuff, the photographs.
Danny Franks:
It's getting a hold of them, you know, and being able to manage those and you know it might be fairly straightforward copying everything, but you want to make sure that you know you've got all your information so you're not having to go back and keep on going back and not having to go back and keep on going back and somebody's you know your ex is saying you know I'm not giving you that because you know I want something in return.
Danny Franks:
It's all part of that and I suppose the solicitors also have to be aware. You know you've got to be aware of what. You know, what the technology has going to say hold the partner has on your client, you know, because they might not be technology savvy, you might just have a mobile phone in their own laptop or a shared laptop that the partner has access to. So it might be, you know, saying, right, you really need to be independent technology-wise, and that might say you either get another laptop or you don't use a laptop at all. You use everything on your mobile phone and just control. You know they have their own account with their own phone and they do everything on the phone, at the very least.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, absolutely. It's such a minefield this area, isn't it? There's so many things that you just don't think about. You think, well, that's odd, how have they known about that? Or how did they know? That's where I was, and then it's only when you start digging into these things that it becomes clearer.
Tamsin Caine:
There is a piece of technology called Our Family Wizard and we spoke to James from Our Family Wizard a couple of series ago and that does have. It's a very secure way of communicating with, with exes. So secure messaging service. That's date stamps, that date stamps aren't aren't amendable, that messages aren't amendable. That, um, that it can. It can pick up a lot of things it could. You can have shared calendars in there rather than sharing calendars externally. So I think something like that is also a good thing to be to be thinking of using. I know a client had a problem with it in terms of the ex was sending huge messages through it and she was having to read these enormous messages but with just sort of one line of text that was important in the huge message, which again can can add to abuse. But at least those things can't be changed. They can be printed out and submitted to court. You know they can be used and you're not. You know you're not risking things being forwarded on from external sources as well, using something like that.
Danny Franks:
Yeah. Yeah, I'm not familiar with that software, but we'll go out and have a look,
Tamsin Caine:
yeah it's worth having a look at.
Tamsin Caine:
Yeah, there's a number of our clients use it and a lot of solicitors are using it now and and some of the courts have actually um required that the the two people and particularly where there's there's parents and the children issues use that programme. You know it is really good. We're coming to the end of our time together. Danny, it's been fabulous to talk to you. Is there anything that you'd like to add that we've not discussed or that you think you'd like our listeners to have as a final word?
Danny Franks:
I suppose, if they've got any suspicion at all, first of all speak to the solicitor, but second of all, seek out a trusted advisor, a trusted technology advisor that is independent, completely independent, that they can trust and help them. That's the only words I can give.
Tamsin Caine:
An advice is to say you know, just check it out, or take some time to go and investigate yourself, uh, and understand your own technology yeah, absol utely, and if you are in the north Chester, south Manchester area, um, one of these details will be in the show notes, so you can. You can get hold of Danny and get him to help you out, and yeah, but otherwise, yeah, please make sure that you are using somebody trusted, who, who is going to have a really good look at what's going on with your technology and make sure that they can make you safe and secure. Danny, thank you for joining me. It's been fantastic and enlightening to speak to you today.
Danny Franks:
Thank you, Tamsin.
Tamsin Caine:
Hi, and I hope you enjoyed that episode of the Smart Divorce Podcast. If you would like to get in touch, please have a look in the show notes for our details or go onto the website, wwwsmartdivorcecouk. Also, if you are listening on apple podcasts or on spotify and you wouldn't mind leaving us a lovely five-star review, that would be fantastic. I know that lots of our listeners are finding this is incredibly helpful in their journey through separation, divorce and dissolving a civil partnership. Also, if you would like some further support, we do have a facebook group now. It's called separation, divorce and dissolution uk. Please do go on to facebook, search up the group and we'd be delighted to have you join us. The one thing I would say is do please answer their membership questions. Okay, have a great day and take care.