Monitoring your partner’s smartphone is probably one of the biggest breaches of trust. There are many technical means and possibilities for monitoring. Particularly perfidious, there are spy apps that are installed unnoticed. TECHBOOK reveals how to recognize this.
Anyone who monitors their partner’s smartphone often accesses existing services. For example, the location functions of the phone and messenger services such as WhatsApp are often checked. Among other things, this allows the whereabouts of a person to be traced. But messages can also be read secretly. It is often not clear to those affected which forms of surveillance are possible via the smartphone. TECHBOOK explains.
Smartphone monitoring via app
There are now a large number of apps in the App Store and Google Play Store that enable smartphone monitoring. In many cases, these spy apps mainly target jealous people. All of them promise to monitor smartphone activity. The apps should, for example, locate the cell phone and make WhatsApp messages or calls visible. In the reviews of the apps, you can find many fans of surveillance. Not only jealous partners or worried parents are enthusiastic, bosses also state that they check their employees in this way.
Also read: Because of this carelessness, others read your WhatsApp messages!
“All in all, **** (name made unrecognizable by editors) does exactly what it promises! The software and the numerous features work flawlessly and reliably. The software has its price, but this is therefore 100% justified,” writes user Marcel, among others, on the spy app’s website.
Surveillance is illegal
Buyers of such an app who want to use it to monitor someone else’s cell phone must install the spy app on the device. The providers do not promise any visibility, so that the person concerned does not notice anything about the surveillance. Secretly, the users of the app find out almost everything that happens on the cell phone: who the person is calling, entire call recordings or chat histories of all messenger services.
What most people are aware of but simply ignore for the purpose of surveillance: such apps are illegal without the consent of the cell phone owner. There is only one exception for parents. People in Germany who install such an app without the knowledge of the smartphone owner and monitor the cell phone can face up to three years in prison. A user reports to Vice for example that he found out through such an app that his wife was cheating on him. He then filed for divorce. He shows no remorse for having used the app secretly and illegally. “100 percent success. The day after tomorrow is my divorce,” says the user to Vice.
That Technology magazine “c’t” conducted a random inquiry at the State Criminal Police Offices of Lower Saxony and Berlin. The result: In recent years, there have been hardly any criminal proceedings or investigations due to the punishable use of such apps. The number of unreported cases, on the other hand, is very high.
Here’s how to spot spy apps
Although the monitoring apps on the cell phone are difficult to unmask because they are usually not visible, there are some clues that can still expose them.
Signs of a spy app on the phone are:
- Increased battery consumption: The work processes of the app lead to a faster discharge of the battery.
- Increased data consumption: Sending files to the spy app user in the background causes higher data consumption.
- Complications on the smartphone: Both the process flows of the app on the cell phone and bugs in the software can lead to the smartphone slowing down and strange messages being received.
Other measures can also be useful:
- Unknown device administrators are disabled.
- Check web access from messengers. Under Registered devices, see which devices have access and block them if necessary.
- If necessary, reset the device to factory settings.
- change passwords.
Also Read: How to Find Spy Apps on Cell Phone
If you suspect that such a spy app is installed on your cell phone, it is advisable to first take a look at the app list. In the settings you can see which apps are installed on your phone and whether there is a monitoring app among them. The problem is that the smartphone monitoring apps use hidden names. Anti-virus apps and anti-spy apps can also help. If you find such an application on your phone, you should remove it.
In general, prevention is better than aftercare. Protect your smartphone with a password, for example, and do not let it fall into the wrong hands.