They gave me this iPhone, or set it up for me
This is a genuinely higher risk situation, and it is worth saying why without alarming you.
Hidden monitoring almost always needs someone to have had the phone in their hands and to have known the passcode. If they handed you the phone, they had both, for as long as they wanted, before you ever touched it.
That does not mean they did anything. It means the checks below are more worth your time than they would be otherwise.
Using Android instead? Read the Android version of this page.
Before you change anything, please read this
If someone is monitoring you, the moment they lose that access is often the moment things get more dangerous. Family violence services see this pattern often enough that it shapes all of their advice.
So, three things before you touch a setting:
- Do not uninstall an app you suspect, and do not factory reset your phone, as your first move. It can tell the other person that you know.
- Removing it also removes the proof. If you might ever want to go to the police, that proof matters.
- Talk to someone first. 1800RESPECT is free, confidential and open 24 hours, on 1800 737 732. Call from a phone you trust, not from the one you are worried about.
None of this means you have to keep a phone you do not trust. It means the order matters, and the safest order starts with a plan and a person, not with a delete button.
One more thing worth knowing now. Talking about this near the phone can be enough. If monitoring software is running, it may be able to hear the room. Have this conversation somewhere else, or on another device.
1. Whose Apple Account is this phone signed into?
This is the most important question, and it is often overlooked.
Open Settings and look at the name and email address at the very top. Is that your Apple Account? Or is it theirs?
If the phone is signed into their account, they can see a great deal, including backups, photos and location, and none of it requires anything hidden. That is your answer, and it is a big one. It is also not something to change quickly without thinking about safety first.
2. Management profiles
An iPhone can be managed the way an employer manages a work phone. This is meant for organisations, and it can be misused.
Settings, General, then VPN & Device Management. On a normal personal iPhone there is usually nothing here. A profile you did not add, that is not from a genuine employer or school, is significant.
Also check Settings, General, About. A managed iPhone says so there, usually with a line about supervision.
3. Screen Time
Settings, then Screen Time. If there is a Screen Time passcode that you did not set, someone else set it. That feature can restrict the phone and report on how it is used. It is a legitimate tool for parents. Used on an adult partner without their knowledge, it is a form of monitoring.
Under Screen Time, also look at Content & Privacy Restrictions, which can hide apps and block changes to settings.
4. Apps you did not install
Swipe left past your last home screen to the App Library, which shows everything installed, including apps hidden from the home screen.
5. Face ID and passcode
Settings, then Face ID & Passcode. Your iPhone never shows you a list of enrolled faces, so there is no list to read. The tell is the Set Up an Alternative Appearance option: if it has gone, a second face is already enrolled, and that face can unlock your phone. Resetting Face ID is a visible change, so read the warning above first.
What if the phone is not really yours
If the account, the plan and the phone all belong to someone else, then the honest answer is that you cannot make that phone private, and no amount of settings will change it.
The realistic answer is a different phone, a new account made on that phone, and a new email address first, because email is what everything else is recovered through.
Family violence services can help with this, and some can help with getting a phone. 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 is the place to start, from a phone you trust.
What this page will not do
We will not tell you your phone is clean. Nobody honest can.
Monitoring software that is any good is built to hide, and the reliable way to find it is a forensic examination of the phone, usually done by police. Any website or app promising to scan your phone and give you a yes or no answer is overselling what it can do, and most of them are selling something. We are a not-for-profit and there is nothing to buy at the end of this.
Next: what to do, in a safe order
Where to get real help
- In immediate danger: call 000.
- 1800RESPECT: 1800 737 732. Free, confidential, 24 hours, by phone or online chat. For anyone affected by domestic, family or sexual violence.
- Police assistance line: 131 444, for threats to your safety that are not an emergency.
- WESNET Safety Net Australia: techsafety.org.au. Specialists in technology and family violence. If you use an Android phone and you think spyware may be on it, they ask people to contact them from a safe device.
- eSafety Commissioner: esafety.gov.au. The national regulator. It has legal powers to help with serious online abuse, including image-based abuse.