Apple and Google are selling apps that lets your partner spy on you

Sinister smartphone apps are allowing snoopers to spy on partners’ phone, monitor their children’s messages or track employees.

Apps sold on the Apple and Google Play stores enable eavesdroppers to record other people’s calls, map a target’s location and monitor messages on social media.

Many can also be used to reveal a target’s internet browsing history and even see how much battery life their phone has left.

One app, called mSpy, which costs up to £149.99 a year, boasts it is ‘a leading parental control app for smartphones that allows parents to monitor text messages, calls, current GPS location, Snapchat, WhatsApp and much more’.

It is only in the small print of the app’s terms and conditions that it states the person doing the spying must own the device being tracked, or the person being tracked must give their permission.

One key feature of the app is that its icon can be hidden away from the phone’s home screen with the user needing to make a detailed search of the phone to discover it.

Accessing a computer device without someone’s permission is an offence under the Police and Justice Act and can carry a two-year prison sentence. 

But it is clear from user reviews that the apps are often being used for covert surveillance by people who suspect their partner is cheating. 

One UK-based reviewer of the mSpy app said last week: ‘I found out my significant other was cheating on me… The app was actually able to obtain deleted WhatsApp notes.’

Another app available on the Google Play store, called Text, Message, Notification, Location Remote Spy, is marketed as ‘the best in discrete [sic] and complete surveillance’ and costs £20 a month. 

Apps sold on the Apple and Google Play stores enable eavesdroppers to record other people’s calls, map a target’s location and monitor messages on social media. Many can also be used to reveal a target’s internet browsing history and even see how much battery life their phone has left [File photo]

One reviewer wrote: ‘My girlfriend had been receiving text messages late at night. Was getting very defensive but this app allows me to find out what I need to know.’

Other apps, including ‘Phone Tracker Spy Phone’, enable people to track locations and movements by harvesting a target’s GPS data from their smartphone. They are marketed as devices to keep children safe.

But domestic-abuse charities have warned that victims are being targeted because of the apps. 

Leanne Higgins, of Solace Women’s Aid charity, said one man recently turned up at a women’s refuge after tracking his partner’s phone. 

She said: ‘The phone was given to her by him, and he was messaging her saying, “I know where you are, I am in the area.” She was definitely at risk of harm.’