Signs a phone or car is being tracked

Bluetooth item trackers, such as AirTags, are small and cheap, and report their position through phones that pass nearby. GPS trackers carry their own SIM card and report over the mobile network; many are battery powered and fixed to a car with a magnet.

Stalkerware is software installed on a phone that passes on its location, messages or calls. Installing it usually needs the phone in hand and its passcode. Shared accounts are the most common explanation and the easiest to overlook: location sharing that was switched on long ago, a family plan, a cloud account signed in on another device, or a car’s own connected app.

Look at who can see your location: Find My on an iPhone, and location sharing in Google Maps on Android. Remove anyone you do not expect. Then look at the devices signed in to your Apple or Google account and remove any you do not recognise. On an iPhone, Safety Check in Settings reviews sharing and access in one place.

On an iPhone, check Settings, General, VPN and Device Management for a profile you did not install. On Android, check which apps have device administrator or accessibility access, and run Play Protect. Update the phone, then change your account passwords and turn on two-step verification, from a device you trust.

An iPhone warns when an unknown AirTag or other compatible tracker appears to be travelling with you, and Android phones have given similar alerts since 2023, with a manual scan in the safety settings. The alerts help, but they cannot cover every make of tracker, and they can take time to appear.

A tracker added to a car is usually somewhere quick to reach: under the bumpers, inside the wheel arches, behind the number plates, under the seats, or plugged into the diagnostic port under the dashboard. Check in daylight, with a torch, and look for anything that does not match the rest of the car.

Remember the trackers you may have agreed to: an insurance telematics box, a finance company’s tracker, or the car maker’s own app. They are a common explanation for a car that seems to be followed.

Clicks or echoes on a call are not a sign of tapping on today’s digital networks. Battery drain, a warm phone and a screen that lights up have many ordinary causes. None of these is evidence either way, and chasing them can hide the real explanation, which is usually an account or a device.

If you are in immediate danger, call 999. If the tracking may be by someone you know, think about your safety before removing anything, because removing a device or an app can alert the person who placed it. Photograph what you find and where, and note the date. Tracking someone without their consent can amount to stalking, which the police can investigate.

The National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge on 0808 2000 247, gives free and confidential advice, including on technology. Where you need a phone, a car, a home or an office checked by a specialist, a sweep can do that, but it covers what was checked, by the methods used, on that day, and it cannot prove that nothing will be placed later.