Spy apps may have been designed so that parents can watch over their kids, but that’s not where it stops. Such sneaky apps can be used by boyfriends, girlfriends, family members, or even suspicious employers. In fact, on your phone, you might have years of text messages and emails with personal information, saved voicemails, pictures of your family, GPS location data, browsing history, notes and more. Imagine that how terrible it would be for a snoop to get their hands on that information through some untrusted spy apps on your phone.
Recognize These Apps on Your Phone
If you see that someone you know seems to have a little too much information about your personal life, they could be spying on you right now. While we are telling you about these untrusted spy apps, it’s strictly for you to know what is out there. If you install any of these apps, do so at your own risk. Some of these untrusted spy apps are not legal in certain states.
It is worth noting that several apps have been recently removed from the Google Play Store by Google, after discovering they violated the Play Store terms of service. And worse than violating the Play Store Terms of Service, such apps could be used as stalkerware. But consider that these untrusted spy apps which discovered by Google have only removed from Google Play Store and not from your Android phone. So don’t waste time for removing them from your phone
The phrase “stalkerware” means to give a third party access to someone’s device, track location, and other sensitive information. But such untrusted spy apps sounds as normal tracking tools.
These apps run afoul of Google’s policies for apps distributed via Google Play: “Surveillance and Commercial Spyware apps are explicitly prohibited on Google Play. Only policy compliant apps exclusively designed and marketed for parental (including family) monitoring or enterprise management may distribute on the Store with tracking and reporting features, provided they fully comply with the requirements described below.”
7 Untrusted Spy Apps You Should be Aware of
It should be noted here that tracking apps must clearly show that they are active and cannot mislead users about their purpose. Generally speaking, apps that try to hide on a user’s device and send their location data to someone else should be considered as untrusted spy apps. Avast, security company, was responsible for highlighting these seven stalkerware apps to Google. Now you need to be aware of them and remove these 7 untrusted spy apps from your Android device if you see them on it:
- Employee Work Spy
- Mobile Tracking
- Phone Cell Tracker
- SMS Tracker
- Spy Kids Tracker
- Spy Tracker
- Track Employees Check Work Phone Online Spy Free
If you have deleted the apps mentioned above or if you don’t see them on your phone you would be safe. But just be a little more cautious, if you still suspect that you are being tracked in some fashion, you might need to factory reset your Android device. It would be the best and easiest way for you to ensure that hidden apps aren’t tracking your movement and spying on you. But after performing factory reset, you will have to reinstall your apps and be sure that before performing that, you have a back up of your data like your photos and videos. At the time you setup your device again, make sure to create strong passwords or make use of password managers in order to stop someone from getting back in your device and reinstalling any tracking tools.
