My first thought was how easy my wife could get this on my phone (or vice versa) - as the article points out. How easily the app could be installed by law enforcement, airport security, etc when they demand access to the phone and walk away with it.

Secondly, I thought how easily someone (boss, co-worker, spouse, etc) could use this as a surveillance device. Just leaving the phone lying around and remotely turn on the mic and camera. (I'm aware of other apps that have this functionality).

Thirdly, I thought it could be useful if my phone was ever lost or stolen. But at the same time, I would be enabling a backdoor into my phone. Trusting a company that develops spyware is a huge leap too.

Fourthly... and actually this was my first thought: Many have already given the Operating Systems they use daily carte blanche to do the very things these spyware apps are able to do. Toss in data-mining and even worse... data-sharing and these spyware apps look like amateur attempts at spyware.

There are a number of use cases but most seem to be pretty bad. Even their followup article[1] is scary (hard to remove even after a factory reset, best to use another phone).

[1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-to-protect-yo...