Questions parents ask: what TheTruthSpy sees, and what it cannot.

The monitored phone must run Android 8.0 or later. The parent panel is a website, so you can manage everything from an iPhone, a laptop or any browser — only the child’s device needs to be Android.

No. Your side is a web panel. You only install the app on the child’s Android phone during setup, and you can also put it on your own phone if you would rather have the panel as an app.

About ten minutes: a couple of minutes to make a free account and add a child, then five or so on the child’s phone to install the app from Google Play, pair it with a code, and grant the location, notification and usage permissions together.

Google Play is the normal route. A direct download of the same app exists for phones that cannot use Google Play, such as some imported handsets. It is the identical build with identical features; there is no “full” version with extra tools.

Yes — there is a read-only demo with a full week of made-up family data. Every screen opens, including the map, the screen time budgets, the app rules and the alerts, and nothing can be changed.

Yes, and that is deliberate. The app is visible on their home screen and shows a plain-language list of what is shared. It is not designed to hide, and it tells you rather than fighting back if it is uninstalled.

No. The app does not request the SMS, call log or contacts permissions, so it cannot read messages or see who they called. If you want to know who is in touch, the social alerts show message counts and sender names from notifications, which is enough to notice a new name at midnight without reading a word.

It sees what those apps show as Android notifications — counts, timing and sender names — and flags your chosen keywords in them. It does not break into the apps or export private messages. WhatsApp, Messenger, Signal and Snapchat are end-to-end encrypted, so no app on the market can read those chats, whatever its marketing says.

No. The app does not ask for the camera or microphone permission, so it cannot take photos, record audio or listen in, remotely or otherwise. Earlier versions had announced, on-request tools for this; they were removed in 2026.

No. There is no keystroke logger and no custom keyboard. The accessibility permission the web filter uses sees the address bar of the browsers you allow, not what is typed in other apps.

No. The app has no storage permission and does not index, flag or copy the gallery.

That is an Android permission state. “While using the app” looks granted but collects no location in the background — only “Allow all the time” keeps the map live when the phone is in a pocket. Change it in the phone’s app settings and reporting picks up again.

Outdoors with a clear sky, usually within a few metres. Indoors, in a basement or in a dense city it can drift to tens of metres because the phone falls back to Wi-Fi and cell positioning. The history evens this out: a trail of points tells you far more than any single pin.

No. A newly paired child starts with no limit at all. Nothing is blocked until you set a daily budget, a bedtime or school schedule, or a per-app limit.

They can request more time from their own phone. The request lands in your panel with their note attached, and you tap 15 minutes, 30 minutes or No. There is a daily cap on how often they can ask.

The phone stops reporting for whatever was removed, and your panel shows it. TheTruthSpy does not hide from uninstallation or force permissions back on. It tells you, so you can talk about it.

Nothing. There is no subscription, no card and no locked tier. Every feature on the features page is free for every family.

The guides on this website carry advertising. Ads never appear inside the parent panel or in the app on your child’s phone, and your family’s data is never sold or used to target ads.

For your own minor children, on a device you provide, with monitoring they can see, it is lawful in most places — but rules vary by country and by the child’s age. TheTruthSpy is built for exactly that case. Monitoring another adult without consent generally is not legal, and is not what TheTruthSpy is for. If you are unsure about your situation, ask a local advice service before installing anything.

Your data is tied to your account and visible to you and any co-parent you invite. It is stored on our servers and with the providers we rely on for hosting and email. We do not sell it.

Yes. You can export your data and delete your account, which removes the family’s records. Unpairing a phone stops collection from it straight away.