What is an obvious sign that family and juvenile dependency courts have crossed the line?

The mandatory use of Our Family Wizard is portrayed in the Netflix movie “Mile 22” (Mark Wahlberg). In this movie, the Mom portrayed by Lauren Cohan, gets goaded into telling her daughter she won’t see her on Mother’s Day (she is meanwhile saving the world). The ex celebrates this by letting the Mom know he just recorded everything she did wrong on their “Our Family Wizard” account. For everyone who has been through the family court system, you are left with the sadness that this Mom will never see her daughter again. While this portrayal is fictional, it reflects real concerns about how structured communication tools are used in contentious custody situations.

The use of communication platforms such as Our Family Wizard is increasingly common in family court cases involving custody and co-parenting disputes. These tools are often used to document communication between parents in order to provide a record of disputes to the “family” court. In almost all cases, family law professionals—such as attorneys, mediators, custody evaluators, or other court-appointed specialists—are universally granted access to review these communications.

Supporters of these systems argue that they promote accountability, reduce miscommunication, and create a clearer record of co-parenting interactions. Critics, however, raise concerns about privacy, the level of intrusion of court involvement, and how these documentation tools are being used in high-conflict cases to create conflict. The mandatory use of Our Family Wizard is essential a violation of everything our founding fathers sought to protect us from. It is the ultimate violation of rights to privacy. Yes, you still have a right to privacy for “intimate” communications, but that’s about it. The company that runs Our Family Wizard proudly announces that “Our Family Wizard allows professionals to completely monitor the family’s activity”.