ChatDD Blog

Cell phone text messages have become a popular way to communicate in all kinds of situations, but people having affairs might want to think twice before pressing the “send” button. Text messages are the “new lipstick on the collar,” the New York Times said in an article published Wednesday, leaving digital footprints of secret relationships.

Tiger Woods had to confess to his “transgressions” when one of his alleged mistresses revealed flirty text messages she claimed he had sent her. Kwame Kilpatrick, the former mayor of Detroit, was caught having an affair with one of his aides because they used government-issued mobile phones and pagers. He was sent to prison after the messages proved that he had lied under oath about the relationship. Nevada’s governor Jim Gibbons lost a divorce suit filed by his wife last spring when it was revealed that he had sent some 800 text messages to a mistress in 2007.

Text messages now serve as solid evidence of scandals and misdeeds which in the past might have been suspected but not confirmed. They can remain in the receiver’s phone even if the sender has deleted them from their phone, and telecom operators save text messages sent on their networks for weeks. The lesson is clear: if you want to keep something secret, don’t talk about it in text messages.