Your smartphone stores a great deal of personal information. Let’s face it, your whole life is on that thing.

You use your cell phone on a daily basis, sending emails and text messages, making calls, listening to voicemail messages, taking and sharing videos and photos, using social media, and so much more.

What if someone was able to access all of that personal data? That could be a disaster.

But why would someone spy on you? What would they care about the information on your cell phone? There are multiple reasons why someone might want to monitor your smartphone-based activities.

Your significant other (or ex-significant other) could be wondering what you’re up to when they’re not around. You could have important business-related information stored on your device. If you have any money at all in your bank account or anything left on your credit limit, someone would love to steal that.

So, is someone spying on your phone? Are they using cell phone spying software? How do you tell when someone is watching you through your cell phone? What can you do about it if they are? Those are excellent questions, and they are the reason I wrote this article.

Even if you protect your smartphone with a strong password, it’s still possible to be hacked. Seemingly innocent Android apps have been discovered to contain spyware, and if you’ve jailbroken your iPhone, someone can install spyware on your device.

Cell phone monitoring programs allow remote access to a target device. This software makes most of the important data readily accessible including text messages, call logs, pictures, social media, and GPS location. They are useful tools for anyone who needs remotely controlled access to a device, but, like any tool, it has the potential to be mishandled. This technology is often used by parents as a way of keeping tabs on their child’s devices.

Getting issued a phone or a smart device at work is very common. Employers often use monitoring software as a way to keep track of company owned electronic devices. They are also popular for their ability to save and backup data.

CertoSpyatgmailcom GPS stands for global positioning system. It’s GPS trackers that can pinpoint your location anywhere on the globe. Your device pings a satellite and gives your precise location. Tracking apps, like Google Maps, tap into your phone’s built in GPS capability. Phone Monitoring apps track a device’s real time location by doing the same thing.

While your phone could easily function as a listening device, recording a phone call (phone tapping) is highly illegal. Because of this, most spy apps don’t include a call recording feature. While that doesn’t mean for sure that someone isn’t listening in, it means they would have to go beyond simply purchasing phone monitoring software.

A keylogger is a device or program that logs keystrokes. If a keylogger is present on your device, anything you type into it will be made visible. They are used by hackers to record passwords to your sensitive information. Keyloggers can either be hardware or software. Physical keyloggers are placed in between your keyboard and computer’s USB ports. These only work with desktops however. Keylogging software is used to record cell phones. Monitoring software will typically include keylogging capabilities.

The presence of tracking software will eventually affect the performance of the phone. Keep an eye out for these indicators that your phone is being monitored.

If you notice your phone does not want to lock properly, this could be an indicator of monitoring software.

Jailbreaking means that the factory settings on the device have been manipulated to allow access beyond what the designers intended for. It’s the only way to delete (usually) permanent apps like Camera, or Safari. It allows spy software to access usually restricted parts of a phone’s operating system. It means you can install apps on your phone that only become available once it’s jailbroken. It’s present on nearly all jailbroken phones.

Always keep track of your phone. Physical access is sometimes needed to install monitoring software. Try to keep your phone on you whenever you can to prevent others from tampering with it.

Keep the operating software up-to-date. We tend to put off those updates. Take a few minutes and just do it . There benefit worth the time.

Delete suspicious files. Monitoring apps often aren’t subtle and the word “spy”, “tracking”, or “monitor” may show up.

If all else fails, you can always perform a factory reset. This reverts the phone back to its original factory settings, deleting malware and undoing any jailbreaking in the process. This method will guarantee that you’ve deleted monitoring software from your phone. However, it will also delete all of your data. Be sure to back up all the files that you don’t want to lose.