You’re doing your job as a parent. You’re regularly checking your child’s phone to make sure they are using it appropriately, and you’re reviewing their app list to ensure they are only using apps you have approved.
But this may not be enough.
Kids have found a way around their parent’s smartphone checks and are now storing secret, hidden apps that hide the true contents of their phone.
What Is Your Teen Hiding on Their Phone?
A new type of smartphone application looks like regular, harmless app, but is actually designed to hide information.
These ghost, secret, or vault apps store information that your child or teen doesn’t want you to see such as:
- Photos
- Text Messages
- Contact Lists
- Internet Browsing History
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What Hidden Apps Are Kids Using?
A few of the most popular ghost, secret, and vault apps include the following.
Private Photo (Calculator%) — This app looks like a standard calculator app, but once you enter the password, you can access a secret folder where you can store images and files.
Private Browser and Photo (calculator%) — This vault app also looks like a calculator. Once you enter the passcode, you can browse the web and your internet history will only be visible in the app.
Calculator + Secret Photos App — Another app that appears to be a calculator, this ghost application allows users to store secret photos, passwords, notes, contacts, and browser history.
Best Secret Folder — This app claims to be, “Extremely Hard to Notice.” It stores videos and photos in a secret folder that will lock or activate an alarm if an intruder tries to log in.
CoverMe (Private Texting & Anonymous Messaging with Secure Phone Calls App) — Designed as a “secure messaging app,” CoverMe provides a private vault that hides personal contacts, messages, call logs, notes, photos, and videos.
These are just a few of the hidden apps that are available today, and it is likely that new versions will continue to enter the market. So, what should parents do about it?
What Can Parents Do About Hidden Apps?
The first thing parents need to do is become aware of the situation.
Knowing about these apps is the first step in prohibiting their use.
“We realize that kids are not one, but ten steps ahead of their parents in term of technology, so parents have to be on guard and become familiar with what is going on,” explained Rania Mankarious of Crime Stoppers of Houston in an interview with ABC Eyewitness News.
Next, parents need to take action to stop their children from using these hidden apps. While you may not be able to tell which apps are secretive by browsing the app lists on your child’s phone (as some apps look harmless or may not show on the main screen), you can look at their recent download list.
Parents need to regularly review the apps their child has downloaded, and then research the apps so they understand their purpose and function.
Being proactive and staying connected to your child in their digital world will always be one of the best ways to prevent your child from making dangerous mistakes online.
Connecting with your child online is easy with the MamaBear Peace of Mind Parenting™ app that enables you to check your child’s social media activity and texting habits from your phone. The free app which is available for both iPhones and Androids helps you stay in the know about your child’s smartphone habits.
This isn’t okay, you need to stay out of your kids phones, it’s not about “safety” your a bad parent if you can’t respect your teens/kids privacy, and if you need to install apps, do phone checks, or set limits on their phones, you must not trust them therefor, you should not give them a phone in the first place. These kind of obsessive measures of “safety” are invasive and unfair, and i can almost guarantee you that this type of behavior towards your teen will affect your relationship with them.
∆ Coming from a teenager!! Have you seen how many predators are online catfishing and either stalking, abducting, or luring people’s unsuspecting children from home? They no longer have to drive the streets they just upgrade their computers to continually change its up address and then begin finessing that child to harm. So NO IT’S NOT ABOUT NOT TRUSTING THEIR CHILDREN IT’S ABOUT NOT TRUSTING THE BILLIONS OF CORRUPT, DISGUSTING, BRUTAL, SICK PREDATORS THAT YOU GIVE ACCESS TO YOUR CHILDREN DAILY & THEN THAT PERSON BEGINS TO TELL THEM HOW TO HIDE EVERYTHING SO THAT THEY DONT GET CAUGHT BEFORE OR AFTER. YOUR COMMENT ALONE GIVES PROOF TO JUST HOW IGNORANT CHILDREN/TEENS ARE OF HOW EVOL THIS WORLD IS & AID RATHER HAVE. PROBABLY VE CHILD MAD AT ME THAN ONE GOING THROUGH UNIMAGINABLE HORROR!!! BECOME EDUCATED BEFORE YOU DO THE “IT’S NOT RIGHT OR FAIR BLAH BLAH THAT EVERY TEEN DOES! SIMPLE! WATCH THE FBI FILES
2nd teen so smart
It’s a parents job, moral and legal obligation to love and protect their children teaching them to be safe, and form healthy life habits. (Yet this system doesn’t put that as a priority anymore)
Again, avoid danger, now we all have free will to make choices; heck you could be like that one girl who butchered her family because mom grounded her from her phone! {SHE’S IN PRISON NOW FOR LIFE AND VERY VERY REMORSEFUL}
Our actions have butterfly effect consequences; it’s whether or not you want a happy life or not.
Even the world’s best parents are going to be right 30%of the time (older but makes still makes mistakes). Not to mention that it is literally CHILD ABUSE for a parent to allow a minor to engage in immoral activities or actions. So yup the one that is frustrating you by checking your phone just may be one of the only people who would give their everything just to make sure you have a happier and healthier life than they did. Bonds are built during times we rely on each other to get through the muck, 50 years ago it was awkward for Dad’s to say i love you their own son, 20 it was awkward just to wear a seatbelt. It’s always awkward at 1st but with practice it almost becomes second nature. Listen I have a young daughter who is struggling with this exact problem. This generation has grown up with smartphone in hand, listen I’m not tht old but when I was a kid i was just happy to get to play outside with a friend after chores. We understand that you are a very special generation, just don’t push away the ones who’ve given everything for you because later the likelihood of ever finding a truer relationship is unlikely.
Keep fighting!
I DID trust my kid, and if I HAD continued to stay out of my kid’s phone, (which I came across by accident) I would not have found the obscene things I found. My kid doesn’t even like tik tok, or mainstream, so I was appalled to find what I found when I decided to see what else there was in hidden folders and apps. She was having inappropriate conversations, not even adult, just stuff that is beyond natural adult stuff. She didn’t even know what she was talking about, just going along with what a more “experienced” kid was “teaching” her. There are whole communities where kids are roleplaying their characters into extreme sexual stories. So yes, now to let her back on her phone, ipad, laptop, I will need to monitor. Judge away, but the things that are available now are difficult for kids, even adults to know how or what to avoid, and once in it, they get pulled in, so I will now monitor to make sure my kid isn’t exposed to any of this.
I did trust my child until I grounded her from her phone and it kept going off so I picked it up and low and behold a upper class men in high school was grooming her and talking her into sending pics and videos of dirty things ( thank God it was on Instagram and they were not saved because I didn’t need to see my daughter like that ) but I sent the kid a message and then I got a phone call from his parents saying it’s ok if we try and stop them they would do it behind our backs like they didn’t have any problem with it well after my daughter he has done the same thing to two other girls and the parents reacted the same way we did this boy will be in prison before long if he continues on with this path