The short definition
Stalkerware is software installed on someone’s phone to secretly report their activity — location, messages, calls, photos, browsing — to another person. It’s sold commercially, often marketed as “employee monitoring” or “parental control,” and it is a recognized tool of intimate partner abuse. The FTC and the Coalition Against Stalkerware both publish plain-language guidance about it.
How it gets onto a phone
- Physical access. The most common path: someone with your unlocked phone for a few minutes installs an app and hides its icon. On Android this usually involves allowing installs from outside the Play Store (“sideloading”); on iPhone it more often involves knowing your Apple ID password rather than installing anything.
- Dual-use apps. Legitimate tools — family locators, “find my phone” features, parental-control apps — configured against you by someone who set up your device or shares your accounts. No malware involved, same effect.
- Account credentials. Strictly speaking not stalkerware at all, but worth repeating: someone who has your Google or Apple password can monitor a great deal without touching your phone. Check accounts before hunting for hidden apps.
What it can see
Capabilities vary by product and by what the installer enabled, but commercial stalkerware commonly offers: continuous location, call logs, text messages and chat apps, photos, browsing history, keystrokes, and sometimes live microphone or camera access. On Android, much of this power comes from misusing legitimate system features — accessibility services (which can read anything on screen), notification access (which can read every notification, including messages from “secure” apps), and device-admin privileges (which resist uninstallation). Our app permissions guide explains each of these in plain terms.
Is it illegal?
In the United States, secretly installing monitoring software on another adult’s phone generally violates federal and state law (wiretap and computer-intrusion statutes), and the FTC has taken action against stalkerware vendors. That legal reality matters for one practical reason: what’s on the phone may be evidence. Which leads to the most important section on this page.
Before you remove anything — read this
Two things advocates want every victim to know before deleting a suspicious app:
- Removal can alert the person monitoring you. Many stalkerware products notify the controller when they stop reporting. If the person is dangerous, that moment can escalate risk. Safety-plan first — our Safety first page walks through it, and advocates at 1-800-799-7233 (thehotline.org) or techsafety.org can help you think it through.
- Removal destroys evidence. If you may ever want a protective order or criminal charges, preserving the phone’s state — or having a professional image it first — can matter enormously.
How detection actually works (and its limits)
Detection tools look for known stalkerware apps by signature, and for the telltale configuration it needs: sideloaded apps holding accessibility or notification access, device-admin apps you didn’t set up, hidden apps with intense permissions. This catches a lot — but stalkerware vendors rename and repackage products constantly, and some monitoring (account access, dual-use apps used as designed) isn’t “malware” at all. That’s why no scan can promise a phone is clean, ours included, and why your own observations remain real evidence.