Text Message Privacy: Who Else Is Reading This?

Abstract

Who talks on the phone anymore? Many of us perhaps. But we do so far less than we did 10 to 15 years ago. And we are increasingly relying on text conversations — whether through Short Message Service (“SMS”) messaging, e-mail or some other “app” — as our primary mode of communication. A 2014 Gallup poll found that Americans under the age of 50 text more than they talk on their cell phones. Canadians are unlikely to be much different, and the numbers have almost certainly moved further in the direction of texting over the last four years