I have seen them used in a variety of situations including parents putting them on home computers to monitor their children’s activities, spouses putting them on each other’s computers when they suspect infidelity, and yes, supervisors putting them on the computers of their workers when they suspect fraud or other types of misbehaviour.

There are two types of keylogging programs for computers. The first is a program that literally captures every key stroke and sends that information via email. This type is good for capturing email and passwords, but it has its limitations. It does not capture the information on the screen that is being viewed. For example, if someone types in their hotmail userid and password and then reads an email without responding to that email and simply closes their session, the content of the email will not be captured. More sophisticated keyloggers will forward a copy of all email sent and/or received on the target computer to overcome this problem.

The other type of keylogger captures every screen image and stores this information on the hard drive. The information can be replayed back, almost like a movie. The only drawback to this method is that physical access to the machine is necessary to collect the information. The latter type is commonly used by a spouse or employer, as there are abundant opportunities for access to the computer.

But what of cellphones? Are there keyloggers or the equivalent for those mobile devices? Now, there are legal issues here and I do not profess to be a lawyer. If you are not clear on what you can or cannot do legally, consultation with legal counsel would be advisable. As this is a new and emerging area, there are many companies that claim to be able to do all kinds of things, many of them are simply not true and are scams. So, if you decide to venture into this area, you have been warned.