Your phone can hold years of text messages and emails with personal information, saved voicemails, pictures of your family, GPS location data, browsing history, notes, and more. It is a record of your whole life wrapped in a single piece of metal, plastic and glass. Imagine how terrifying it would be for someone to have their hands on that information.
That’s why you have to set a passcode to avoid accidental spying and install a tracking app to recover or erase the phone if it falls into the wrong hands. Learn how to do this and other ways to secure your smartphone or tablet against snoops. But what if the thief is a little more dedicated? Can they spy on your phone without your knowledge?
Unfortunately, the answer is “yes”. There are many spy apps that can hide your phone and record everything you do. Snoop can see every detail of your life and you will never know.
We’re going to take a look at what spy apps are out there on the market and how they work so you know how to stay safe. However, first, we’re going to look at situations where spying apps are legal and can even be a good thing.
Good Uses for Spying Apps
We hear regularly from parents about what their kids are doing on their smartphones. While our first recommendation is always to have open lines of communication with kids, sometimes it pays to keep an eye on them directly. Employers also sometimes like to keep tabs on employees using company equipment. But is it legal?
Legally a person or company is only allowed to install spy software on their phone, tablet or computer. So, the employer providing the company phone and the parent giving the phone to your children are covered. They only need to make it clear to the users of the phone that they are being watched and for commercial purposes, also require written consent.
However, breaking into a password-protected phone is a no-no. And even if someone else owns your gadget, they aren’t allowed to break into your password-protected services like email or Facebook. Federal law prohibits unauthorized access to such things.
In addition, some spying software, such as FlexiSPY, has the option to listen to real-time phone calls, which may break wiretapping laws. In some states, at least one person involved in the conversation is required to know that they are being recorded. For some states, all parties need to know. And this can change if someone in one state calls in from another state.
If you find that someone is spying on you, go to the police. As for the gray areas where someone else has the phone, you’ll probably need to get a lawyer involved.
Well, with that out of the way, let’s talk about spy apps and other tricks of the spy business.
spy apps on the market
As we said earlier, there are many spy apps in the market. Mspy is one of the most recognizable, but others you might see are FlexiSPY, WebWatcher, and SpyToMobile.
They record all text messages and phone calls. Some include a keylogger to record everything you type, store GPS information, take pictures and even data from popular free messaging apps like WhatsApp, Skype, and Viber pulls. A spy can see everything happening with the phone through a web-based control panel.
There is some good news. In December 2014, the Justice Department took the man behind StealthGenie, a major app, to court for making and advertising spyware. He pleaded guilty and received a $500,000 fine, plus he had to hand over the source code for the product. So, you won’t be able to see it around.
On the other hand, the rest have become somewhat more sophisticated. Therefore, snoopers do not need full access to your gadget and a short time, plus the range of phones that can be attacked by them has increased.
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