The Sunday News
Peter Matika, Senior Life Reporter
IN light of the recent High Court ruling, which states that it is illegal for spouses to pry into each other’s cellphones, local fire extinguisher distributor and fire engineers, ABC Firetech Fire Engineers, will soon exclusively launch a new mobile application, which is compatible with fire extinguishers that are able to conceal and store “private” information on one’s cellphone from their spouses, Sunday Life reports.
The extinguishers — Fire Eliminator, are set to hit the market soon, as the company partners with mobile service providers.
The Fire Eliminator will literally not only extinguish fires but also extinguish “unwanted fires” caused by the urge to snoop on a spouse’s cellphone.
The extinguisher was exhibited at the just held 37th edition of the Zimbabwe international Trade Fair (ZITF), where the Firetech general manager of the company Lovemore Ndebele said, as an organisation they too had a mandate to protect societal interests, particularly focusing on marriages.
“This is a new product and we anticipate it will hit the market as soon as we have sorted all logistics. We have all been affected by technology, positively and negatively.
“We as Firetech will avail this product at an affordable price. We will be partnering with mobile service providers, whereas the storage of data is concerned as well,” said Ndebele.
The extinguisher is anticipated to be a favourite among the men and is anticipated to save many marriages.
The extinguisher and app only function when they are connected through Bluetooth.
“The extinguisher can be used for security purposes to protect you from daily challenges that have become a societal ill, owing much to tech gadgets, which have given birth to crimes of passion. This is a new high tech extinguisher that we anticipate will not only save people from fire but also crimes of passion,” said Ndebele.
The Fire Eliminator comes in compact sizes and has built-in microchips, which store the information you required to be hidden from the spouse.
Firetech imports has exclusive rights to the distribution of the tech from Asia.
“Once you activate the app it immediately closes all websites, hides all chats, shuts down all games, hides all special folders, deletes call and chat history,” added Ndebele.
Harare High Court judge Justice Tawanda Chitapi last month said evidence obtained through prying into a cellphone should not stand in court as it would have been obtained illegally.
Justice Chitapi made the landmark ruling as he sentenced one Fortunate Nsoro, 36, of Chitungwiza for knifing her husband to death while their daughter, 8, watched, for refusing to show her a “suspicious” text message that he had received on his cellphone.
The judge said snooping into someone’s phone contravenes section 57 (d) of the Constitution, which guarantees every person the right not to have the privacy of their communications infringed.
“There is no law which provides that a husband or wife has a right to infringe on the privacy of the other’s communications . . . ,” he said during the ruling.
Justice Chitapi said the courts continued to be inundated with cases involving spouses invading the private communications of the other.
“This practice should be deprecated as it amounts to investigating or eavesdropping on one another. Usually spouses who do this will be aiming to find evidence of wrongful conduct by the other.
“Eavesdropping on another’s cellphone is evidence of lack of trust in that other person and the courts are flooded with cases where couples or spouses seek to prove wrongful conduct by the other using evidence in the form of messages retrieved from another spouse’s phone,” he said.
