An app for parole monitoring is so buggy that it is very hard for people to keep the requirements. They live in fear of being imprisoned again because something did not work. It needlessly drains the battery, and when the battery runs dry at the wrong time, the user can be imprisoned for that. In addition, it can listen through the phone at any time.

I'd choose an ankle bracelet if I had the choice. However, those don't work in the smooth way you might imagine. Parolees using ankle monitors have to pay for them, also, thought they don't also have to pay hundreds of dollars at the start to buy one. And ankle bracelets too are unreliable, and run out of charge too often, which puts the user in danger of being imprisoned or missing work.

Every portable phone, whether smart of not, can be converted into a full-time listening device. Let's learn to think of every portable phone as a form of virtual prison.