Stalkerware is consumer surveillance software marketed for “parental control” or “employee monitoring” but deployed overwhelmingly by intimate partners against current and former intimate partners. Major products: mSpy, FlexiSpy, Cocospy, KidsGuard Pro, XNSPY, Hoverwatch, Spyzie. Tracked by Coalition Against Stalkerware (operated by EFF, Kaspersky, NNEDV, and others). The product category whose abuse pattern is documented severely enough that detection is now built into major antivirus and OS-level safety features.
What it means in practice
The deployment pattern: brief physical access to the unlocked device (5-15 minutes), installation of the app under “parental control” framing, configuration of the dashboard the operator uses to read the target’s data. Once installed, the icon hides, the app survives reboot, it operates persistently with elevated permissions (often through accessibility-service abuse on Android, configuration-profile installation on iOS, or by being installed on the iCloud / Google account from another device). Detection is harder than removal: the app is engineered to be invisible to the device user, the dashboard URL is the only operator-side indicator, and forensic-grade exam is often the only path to definitive identification. Coalition Against Stalkerware publishes detection guides and removal procedures with the specific discipline that the device should be preserved as forensic evidence before being wiped.
Who uses it, and against whom
Documented overwhelmingly: intimate partners (current and former) deploying against current and former intimate partners, controlling parents against teenagers and young adults, employers against employees in jurisdictions where the practice is legal. The 2019 EFF investigation identified at least 200,000 active stalkerware deployments in the US alone; the actual figure is multiples larger because most cases are undetected. The defensive landscape has improved: Android App Defense Alliance scans Play Store submissions for stalkerware patterns, iOS Configuration Profile Management surfaces installations that would be invisible otherwise, and major antivirus products (Malwarebytes, Kaspersky, Bitdefender) flag stalkerware where they detect it. The structural problem persists: stalkerware vendors operate openly, marketing aggressively, with TV ads and SEO investments treating the product category as legitimate.
What you can change today
If you suspect a current or former intimate partner has installed stalkerware on your device, do not factory-reset alone; the reset destroys forensic evidence that may matter in a future legal case. Steps in order. First, photograph the device home screen and the app list, and check Settings, General, VPN and Device Management (iOS) or Settings, Accounts, Work profiles (Android) for unfamiliar profiles or admin-tier apps. Second, get a clean phone (any working device, not from the same household) for sensitive communications during the investigation. Third, contact a domestic-violence advocate (NDVH 1-800-799-7233 in the US) or the Coalition Against Stalkerware (stopstalkerware.org) for the documented removal procedure that preserves evidence; do the wipe on the original device only after the documentation is complete.