Turning against Ashley Madison: Hong Kong's digital cheat-buster probes growing trend of spousal affairs
Cheating on your partner has never been easier thanks to smartphones and dating apps like Tinder, prompting a pair of brothers to start a “digital detective” service in Hong Kong aimed at rooting out cheaters by spying on their online profiles.
But while social media platforms have made it easier to have an affair, they are also an adulterer’s Achilles heel, especially after hackers targeted extramarital affairs site Ashley Madison earlier this year and leaked details of its users.
“People can take advantage of social media and for guys or girls, some people actually go hunting, especially on a business trip in a city where the partner is miles away,” said Yosh Wong, director of Emmaus, an investigation firm formed in 2004 which specialises in corporate cases but also handles suspected infidelity.
“It’s hard to identify a trend because there are no statistics to show it,” he said, adding that anecdotally, there had been more cases of suspected infidelity in recent years.
“It’s also difficult to pinpoint because in Chinese culture, people want to keep it within the family but over the years, we know there are people investigating their partners.”
Nowadays, they go online and the lady might just go up to the hotel room and it’s harder to catch them
Wong said dating apps and instant messaging like WhatsApp and WeChat allow people to find someone who is physically nearby and immediately start a conversation.
