Police in China uncover ‘stalkerware’ app that lets users spy on partners

Phone spyware can reveal a victim’s location and chat conversations

(Picture: Shutterstock)

When police in Nanjing, a city in eastern China, went through the phone of a fraud suspect in July, they noticed something unusual: It kept getting notifications of the real-time location of a particular phone number.

Investigators tracked down the owner of the number, who was completely unaware he was being spied on. The man turned out to be just one of more than 60,000 people nationwide who had fallen victim to a piece of so-called stalkerware, according to a CCTV report.
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