How To Tell If Someone Is Tracking Your iPhone

No one wants their iPhone being tracked, especially without their knowledge. That’s why there are technology privacy laws in place, to help protect the everyday consumer from an invasion of phone privacy. But, how is someone still able to track your phone? We discuss this further below, along with how to tell if someone is tracking your iPhone.

How Can Someone Track Your iPhone?

- Find My Friends

Someone could use the “Find My Friends” app to keep track of your iPhone’s location. Here’s how they would be able to accomplish this:

• Go to Settings on the iPhone you want to track.
• Tap on their Apple ID, then iCloud.
• Choose Share My Location and toggle the button to turn on this feature.
• Make sure the From field is set as This Device.
• Open the Find My Friends app, then click on Add.
• In the To field, enter your Apple ID email address, and click Send.
• Tap on Send Indefinitely.

- iPhone Tracking App

The most common method of tracking someone’s iPhone location and other activities is by using a phone spy app, tracking app, or spyware. There are numerous apps out there, so it may be hard to pinpoint which one is being used to track your iPhone. Once the iPhone tracking software is installed on the device, it can be hard to find as most are usually created to be undetectable.

Even though iPhone tracking software and apps are intended for legal use only by parents and employers, sometimes, it can be used for malicious and criminal reasons. All you can do is educate yourself on the signs your iPhone is being tracked and what you can do about it.

Signs Your iPhone Is Being Tracked

If you know what the signs of cell phone tracking are, you can easily know whether or not your iPhone is being tracked by someone.

- Increased Data Usage

Any app or software being used on a phone uses up data. If you happen to notice that your data usage has drastically increased on your monthly phone bill, it could be because of a tracking app. Using such technology to retrieve someone’s GPS iPhone location and other information requires a lot of data. However, first check your own phone data usage before jumping to this conclusion.

- Fully Charged Battery Drains Quickly

Just like with any phone software or app, the use of a monitoring application drains the phone’s battery. If your phone used to last all day after being fully charged, but all of sudden is only lasting half the day, something is up. Likely a monitoring app or another app is running in the background without your knowledge.

- New Apps On Your Phone

A clear sign that someone is tracking your iPhone is that there is a new application on your device. If you didn’t download the app, someone else clearly did. Whenever you find any new apps you don’t recognize on your iPhone, you should delete them immediately.

- Phone Is Operating Slowly

Is your phone operating more slowly than normal? Often, this can occur when your iPhone is working in overdrive, having too many apps and web browsers open. This includes secret apps in the background running to track your iPhone.

- It’s Acting Abnormally

Besides the above, there are other abnormal iPhone activities to watch out for. This includes hearing background noises when making a call, and the phone freezing or randomly turning off.

What You Can Do About It

There’s no need to fear! There are many methods of stopping someone from tracking your iPhone.

- Disable iPhone Location Sharing

A quick and easy way to stop tracking of your iPhone is by disabling location sharing. To do so, follow the below steps:

• Go to Settings, and click on your Apple ID.
• Tap on Share My Location, then toggle the Share My Location button to turn off (no longer green).

- Update Version Of iOS

Often, someone can exploit iOS vulnerabilities to track an iPhone. To ensure this doesn’t happen to you, update your iOS on a regular basis.

- Change iCloud Login Information

Depending on how someone is tracking your iPhone, they may have used your iCloud information to access your device. To break this connection, change your iCloud password to something that is unguessable and random.

- Use Antivirus Software

If there is a malicious app or code being used, antivirus software will be able to find and quarantine it. All you need to do is find the best option for you and install it on your iPhone. The antivirus software will take care of the rest.

- Factory Reset Your iPhone

As a last resort, doing a factory reset on your iPhone will remove any foreign apps, software, or code on your device. However, it will also remove any of your other apps, contacts, photos, videos, and other data stored on it as well.

That’s how to tell if someone is tracking your iPhone. Hopefully, your iPhone isn’t being tracked, but if it is, use the methods listed above to stop it.

Originally Published On PhoneSpector On September 12, 2019.