What is stalkerware?

Stalkerware is software that lets someone secretly monitor another person’s private life through their phone, without that person’s knowledge or consent.

The Coalition Against Stalkerware describes it as “tools – software programs, apps and devices – that enable someone to secretly spy on another person’s private life via their mobile device”. [1] Stalkerware is not the same as watchware: watchware is monitoring software that does not try to hide, such as a parental control app a family has agreed to use.

Why it matters on Android

On Android, apps can be installed from outside an app store, which is called sideloading. Stalkerware is often installed this way by someone who has brief access to the phone. It may hide its icon, and it may ask for powerful access. That can include the accessibility service, notification access or device admin, which can let it see what happens on the phone and make it harder to remove.

Removing a monitoring app can alert the person who installed it. If that could put someone at risk, it helps to talk to a support service first.

How Applore uses it

Applore’s Suspicious App Checker compares installed apps with a reviewed list of known stalkerware and harmful apps, based on Echap’s public indicators [2] and indicators from the Mobile Verification Toolkit project and ESET. It also flags sideloaded apps that behave like hidden monitoring apps, for example a hidden icon combined with accessibility or notification access. The check runs on your phone. How to check an Android phone for spyware and stalkerware shows the steps, by hand and with Applore, and how detection works explains the signals and levels.