
Just be careful and monitor the apps installed in your phone.[1]Copyright by LG under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
In my professional experience, I have dealt with and witnessed some quite serious and delicate situations subsequent to the ending of relationships and marriages. Stalking, threats, violence, harassment, attacks against property, home trespassing, defamation, nuisance to family members and closer friends, blackmail, outbursts of rage in the ex’s workplace or neighbourhood… I could go on, really, but you get the point. Let’s just euphemistically say that love has a very unromantic side which is not usually portrayed on romantic comedies.
In spite of all the good brought by technologies, they have a dark side which this blog – as you might have figured it out already by now – is usually about. Today’s post is not an exception. In fact, technologies have made a lot easier for unloved lovers to actually turn their partner’s or ex’s lives into hell.
How?
Well, with mobile monitoring software. This kind of technology has been legally around for quite a while now and is deemed the favourite tool for jealous (psycho?) lovers. Well, it suffices to type “app spy ex” on your favourite search engine to get a clear idea about their popularity.
You would be surprised about how easy it actually is. To start with, there are plenty of apps available in the market. A quick online search will give you an idea about the diversity of the options available. They are cheap, accessible and they are easy and quick to install.
Therefore, it suffices to gain a short access to the targeted mobile phone, let’s say, when the owner is taking a shower or trustfully provide the phone for a call. The app can even be set up before the Smartphone is offered as a birthday or a Christmas gift. How thoughtful!
In this regard, I would like to point out that when the app is side loaded (for instance, not from a legitimate app store such as Google playstore), there is the double risk of installing monitoring backdoors which could enable the access for third parties (besides your very personal spy) for unknown purposes.
Another sneakily effective way to monitor someone’s activities is to access the information contained in the cloud. It suffices to know the username and password, elements easily given away to your partner when you are in a trustful relationship. Cloud storage is another particular issue in itself due to its link to computers. As spyware could have been installed remotely through the e-mail, it is useless to change the login details for the cloud on the mobile phone, as those can be accessed on the computer.
What happens next?
Well, your unacknowledged personal spy will be able to access almost all activity which takes place on your cell phone: listen to and record your calls, scrutinize your messages, track your location, watch the photos and videos you shoot and monitor your online activities… or really just browse your Facebook account which actually contains by itself almost all this information.
As this wasn’t enough, these tracking technologies can run imperceptibility in the background, making it difficult to be detected. So unless your covert ‘admirer’ cannot help himself/herself but giving away hints about his/her privileged awareness of your life, you might not even suspect its existence.
The truth is a jealous partner or an ex who does not accept the ending of the relationship will be almost as effective as intelligence services in tracking you down. In fact, this kind of technology is increasingly becoming the favourite tool for abusers. Let’s not fool ourselves here. Women are the main victims of these technologies. Many do not even realise that they have a cloud account associated to their Smartphone.
Women experiencing domestic violence are particularly vulnerable in this context, as these technologies allow for the perpetuation of persecuting and intimidating behaviour when they try to flee an abusive relationship.
Of course, this kind of behaviour has always existed. From the old fashion ways of going through the pockets of a coat, listening to conversations, reading letters, looking for a trace of lipstick on a shirt, for a new piece of jewellery, to hiring a private detective or following the victim around… However, technologies have made all this so much easier and invasive.
Obviously technologies are not to blame. The subjacent motivations are. They are just a tool with great potential put to bad use. For instance, the very same technologies can be used for parent monitoring which is acceptable to a certain extent.
Thus said, I do not want to sound alarmist. But if you recently ended up a romantic relationship, and it happens that your ex was the jealous and possessive type, and/or that person suspiciously appears to know a lot about your current whereabouts and social activities, I would say that there is a fairly high chance that your phone is being spied on!
I would therefore advise you to have your mobile phone checked to confirm or exclude that possibility and, subsequently, be able to assess if you are the aim of any other kind of stalking.
Lastly, I would like to outline that such secretive interception of electronic communications is illegal, thus I would also recommend for you to seek legal advice in that regard.
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