The apps are marketed towards worried parents but reviews have revealed people are using them to track their partners without their knowledge
CREEPY apps that let your lover spy on you - including monitor your calls and text messages - are being sold on smartphones.
The apps, which can easily be bought on Apple and Google Play, can even help someone track a person's phone and search their Internet history.
Although the programs - including mSpy and Text, Message, Notification, Location Remote Spy, are marketed towards parents keeping track of their children, reviews have revealed people are using them to track their partners.
In one disturbing review for the software, which can be bought for £20 a month, a person wrote: "I think this is the most useful app out there right now it is so easy to use an my girlfriend didn't even know."
Another added: "This app is incredibly useful and does everything its supposed to do.
"I was able to see everything my boyfriend had been hiding from me and because he let's me on his fone all the time it was so easy.
"Everyone should get this app especially of you have a kid or significant other you suspect is being u faithful. It saved me alot of heartache and pain. Thank you for actually helping me."
mSpy, which costs up to £14.99 a year, boasts that it can help parents "monitor text messages, calls, current GPS location, Snapchat, WhatsApp and much more".
But in one review, a user claimed: "In those 3 days I found out my sig other was in fact cheating on me.... The app was actually able to obtain DELETED Whatsapp notes."
The app's website includes a disclaimer, saying it is a violation to install the software onto a device you do not own.
Accessing a computer device without someone’s permission is an offence under the Police and Justice Act and can carry a two-year prison sentence.
Fine Line Labs, who run Text, Message, Notification, Location Remote Spy, said the app was used for parental or employer use.
They said the only way someone could install the app on a person's phone was to unlock it, and install the monitoring software.
A spokesperson added: "Both situations (unlocking and reading your personal information, and unlocking to install software) are illegal, so we trust that law abiding people will use our app legally.
"For a thief who steals a device to gain access to it, that is entirely separate from our app and the apps intended purposes."
Google's policies include prohibiting Surveillance and Commercial Spyware apps being sold on the Play store.
