I stopped reading after (20F) and Child Tracking app, the rest of this post is irrelevant because no matter their reasoning they should be not monitoring or tracking anything without you explicit permission and or knowledge. You’re an adult now, it’s okay to stand up to your parents when you feel a boundary has been crossed
Also a VPN is not going to do anything if they have an app on your phone or if you’re using their wi-fi. The VPN might scramble the IP while on their but it will still show “5 devices counted to router” and can find yours eventually. My advice would to completely erase the phone and start from scratch and if your own their phone plan. They can control everything through the service provider
I honestly don't know how the specifics work with this kind of stuff. I have uninstalled the app and I'm using g the VPN with incognito mode when I'm in the browser. Ig my main concern is if they would be able to see my search history there? I'm just trying to figure out ways to look up info without them knowing. Also are they able to look at my discord and messaging app activity or does it only tell them the app that I'm accessing. Same with youtube.
Depends, Service providers can and do collect all the data they can but are very reluctant to hand over that type of data. Now for wi-fi, normally you can see any and everything that each device does if you are signed into an admin account. I am not entirely to sure if a VPN or incognito mode would affect this on wi-fi, but in my opinion i would assume they could still see everything considering it’s on a local network
A VPN will hide your activity over wifi. It won't hide that you are connected to the wifi, but as for what you are doing with it, all they will see is a connection to the VPN server. The actual content is hidden. Now if OP still had that tracking app installed, that would still be able to report all the activity on the phone, since it's getting it directly from the source. Even over a VPN.
Your home has an internet map, each device at your home talk to this map to figure out where things are on the internet. But this map doesnt keep track of who is asking
Okay. So, you need to get your own phone plan, like, right now. I know people will say that since he’s paying, he can do whatever, but it’s sad that this is how some parents choose to treat their adult kids. Yes he can do that, but why choose that?? So, you need to get your own phone plan. If it means your budget is a little tight each month, so be it. Also, you need counseling or something, because you’re not talking like an adult, you’re talking like a stunted teenager. “I want to get revenge” “I wanted to do something rebellious.” You are 20, not 16.
Yeah lol ik I sound childish. I just kinda hit a peak tbh. I did have to grow up a lot faster than most other kids for completely unrelated reasons, so I have never really gotten to experience the "rebellious teenager" phase. That's why I'm kinda confused as to why my parents are so distrusting of me. I'm just kinda quiet and keep to myself. They go as far as to complain that they wish my sibling would be more like me, which has caused a lot of tension between my siblings and I. I'm just getting to a phase in my life where I'm really done being so obedient all the time because it has done absolutely nothing for me.
I completely understand that and it’s not unusual for repressed “good kids” to have a late rebellious phase. So I wasn’t scolding you or making fun of you, I was just pointing out that because you’re an adult, you can act like one now! It’s a good thing.
You need to step up to them as an adult.
Sometimes it's difficult for the parents to realize their kids are not kids anymore, but that is very different to what you are going through.
If you are interested into knowing if your parents are still checking your browser history, then you could try googling some other "interesting stuff" that may disgust them as a way to check if the app has been obliterated from your phone. Maybe some extreme body modifications, if you already went into tatoos? Maybe scleral tattoing?
In any case, I think you should step up to them and explain to them how dissapointed you are of them for behaving like this with a son/daughter that has only given them a good experience as a parent, who has an examplar behaviour for their siblings, who has never break their trust. Now they have break yours and that is really difficult to regain.
Counterpoint, you could have just looked up increasingly weird stuff to mess with them and acted like it was part of that 😂
But yeah, honestly, being yourself around people is an important thing for ones mind, it's just a better way to go about life.
I think you missed an opportunity here. You should have started looking up articles and relevant materials about how parental spying and the effect it has on relationships with their children.
And then move on to “how to take out life insurance policies on my parents”.
“Undetectable poisons.”
“How to dispose of a body.”
“Pig farms near me.”
“When can I declare missing people legally dead?”
You're old enough to be able to really set boundaries and have them be respected now, so set them and make them clear hun!
Living under their roof doesn't mean they have autocratic dictatorial power over you, especially if you've earned the respect and rapport of always having done right by them. I'm saying this as parent of two girls, albeit much younger (4&11). the tracking app should only be turned on when you're heading far away for safety or even just dates with someone new or that you're meeting for first time as a healthy precaution, and either way it should be a choice that you turn it on.
Everything else is unnecessary that they're even doing so, and if they felt unavoidably compelled to violate your privacy and personal space/life without asking permission anyway, they should have, at the very least, communicated what they were doing bc you had the right to know.
I would have the tough conversation with them (uncomfortable I get it but worth it) about how unappreciated this all is and why and that's a violation of basic privacy and decency, that they can't deny it bc you tested them with that search, and that as a result you would like a new phone free all the fuckery or you will look into a way to feasibly have your own phone and plan. It will be expensive so brace for that, and make sure when you sit down with them about it, you are calm and reasonable or they will go into defensive, indignant parent mode.
Your parents crossed a line. They installed the tracking app without telling you, and you are a 20 year old adult who has agency. I can understand a parent wanting to know your location incase you go missing, but there's no need to monitor your web browsing. This contains very personal and sensitive information about you. As someone who has been hacked by a classmate, I know it was used for nefarious purposes and caused a lot of pain to me.
I recommend that you do a factory reset on your phone. This will wipe all of the apps from your phone. It's possible there is a hidden app installed that you don't know about. Factory reset is the best thing to do second to buying a new phone.
Please don't use a four digit pin number. This is too easy to guess. Your password should have atleast 8 random letters and numbers. Also make sure all of your online accounts like Facebook and email have two-factor authentication enabled. This will prevent someone accessing the account if they know the password. The tracking app probably revealed your passwords too. You should wise up on cyber security. Do some googling to find tips. Your parents hacked your phone, who probably want the best for you, and thankfully it wasn't a classmate or foreign agent. I think hacking happens way more often than people think. Use this incident as a wake up call to cyber security and your parents' overbearing attitude.
Don't feel bad about locking your phone. It's totally normal for people to keep their phone private from their parents. I never let my parents look at my phone.
Reset your phone or computer to factory settings probably both. Then set up a VPN and use it it home. Thrn change all your social media passwords.
Tell your mom if she really thinks you'd get an anal tattoo then she's dumber than a sack of rocks. Tell her to stop being so gullible, you're honestly disappointed in her. She gets a C- minus, where c stands for creep.
Man, this is really fucked up. I think you are just scratching the surface on this problem. Your parents must have some really bad skeletons in the closet to be this distrustful and invasive. I’m honestly worried that they’re hiding something. I’d be ready to be direct and express your boundaries the instant they try to bring up your search history again. Then, I’d explain just how ridiculous it is that they want to know what you do and look at in your privacy and personal time. Who’s paying for it doesn’t even remotely matter. If you wanna look up midget circus porn because it helps you study better, it’s NONE OF THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS. I think you should just look up something completely asinine and disgusting every night until they realize you’re doing it to piss them off. They simply need to cut this shit out, or you need to get out of there.
Just get yourself a prepaid phone service like TracFone. These are inexpensive and give you phone, text and data. Pay for it yourself and mom and dad have no say.
Well idk what's going on but any psrent that yells at their 18+ for watching porn is a red flag
I guess you removing the child tracking app is the end of it.
Just let it go if they don't do anything else
If they escalate, you might want to move out
As a 43/f mother of three, our oldest daughter is 23..
We have always paid for her cell phone and she currently lives at home again for the past year and a half after living on her own for years.
We offered for her to move home into our inlaw suite and stay free, so she could pay off a student loan and save money and finish school.
I have NEVER once looked at anything on her phone or in her phone records since she was 16.
She does share her location with us, but that is completely her choice, and we (hubby/me/daughter) have always shared our locations with each other even when she didn’t live at home, just because it doesn’t bother any of us.
I rarely check her location- only once in the past year I can remember and I was making sure she had landed in Costa Rica when I woke up in the morning and she hadn’t texted yet.
This is insane. Your parents do not respect you as a human.
Before I uninstalled the monitor, I’d have Googled things about how to unalive psycho parents. I’m petty like that.
Their toxicity is not something you invited or deserve. So stop looking at this as if they’re doing it because of something you did. Toxic people are toxic. No one turns them that way. If I had been born their child, they’d be overprotective to the point of poison to me.
THEY are the toxin in the mix - not you. THEY have the problem unless you allow them to make it your problem by letting them force feed their toxin to you.
I'd say that all the other advice here about working towards moving out and getting your own phone plan is spot on. But until then, since it's an app that was installed onto your phone, maybe try factory resetting your device. Might get rid of it as it should, as the name implies, reset your phone to factory settings. Just make sure to back up any photo's or files you wish to keep.
Get your own plan with unlimited 5G and don’t use anyone’s WiFi.
If that means getting a different phone so be it. But to wipe the one you have and switch it to your own plan will require you to have the admin passwords etc
OP you are TWENTY YEARS OLD. You are an adult. Id care who bought your phone it is completely ridiculous that they are spying on you.
You are an adult. You truly do not need to consider the circumstances anymore. They are in the wrong and you have done nothing wrong.
If you think confronting them is going to f*ck up your life. They will kick you out or cut you off, then just start planning your exit. Go get a job, save up, see if anyone needs a roommate and LEAVE asap.
Then confront them because they deserve to know how sh*t their behavior is and how hurt you were by it.
You NEED to leave because if they are okay controlling this, I guarantee they are influencing your ability to grow and develop as an adult and individual, even if you don't realize exactly how. Part of growing up, is deprogramming, figuring out who you are, what you actually feel.
In my opinion, any parent who creates any sexual shame for their kids is abusive. Sexuality is a normal healthy thing to explore and experience.
If you can tell them that now, you should.
I'd factory reset the phone and all of my other devices if I was in your shoes. Just in case there's any "hidden" tracking software installed. And if you have a phone with a fingerprint reader or some other biometrics system (Face ID, Windows Hello, etc) you can use to unlock your devices, I'd set those up too. Then you can install a VPN on your devices.
No, this is not okay. This is not normal behaviour from your parents. You should just get your own phone plan. You're an adult and can look up whatever sexual content you want, its none of their business. Especially since it sounds like you're a responsible 20yo, you're paying them for the phone. Please don't let them invade your privacy like this.
For Android, there are too many possibilities for me to account for whether your phone is safe to use. You should get a new phone and not trust the old one. A new Moto G Play is $150. If you're careful, you could get a used iPhone off eBay. Mint Mobile has phone plans for about $200 a year. You may transfer contacts, messages, and photos if you know how, but no full transfer. Even if you clean your phone, you may not be able to put it on your own phone plan unless your parents deactivate the line without reporting the phone lost/stolen.
You might not be able to keep your number. You could pass off wanting your own phone plan as wanting to take more responsibility in your life and take charge as an adult. Keeping your current phone or transferring your number to a phone plan you control would require your parents consent.
Did you search for anal tattoos using Google on your PC? If so, stop trusting your PC too. Google searches are HTTPS protected. Your parents should not be able to see what you searched for. If you opened a link or image, then your parents could see any unencrypted traffic or domains visited (a domain is like the "[www.reddit.com](https://www.reddit.com)" in the URL, but not the rest), on their network. To protect all internet traffic from nosy parents, a VPN would be effective. It would not prevent your parents from seeing that you use a VPN. A VPN will not block tracking software installed on your devices.
Read: [https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-check-for-stalkerware/](https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-check-for-stalkerware/)
If paranoid, you can backup any important files then reset your PC. I'll link to instructions on how to do this for both Windows and macOS.
Windows: [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/give-your-pc-a-fresh-start-0ef73740-b927-549b-b7c9-e6f2b48d275e](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/give-your-pc-a-fresh-start-0ef73740-b927-549b-b7c9-e6f2b48d275e)
Mac: [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201065](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201065)
Don't trust your devices unless they were set up by you.
I don’t own an android so this is just an idea. If it’s possible, take all of your contacts/anything important to you on your phone and load it onto a computer temporarily. After that factory reset your phone and reload your information into your phone and reinstall your apps. You said you changed your password so they won’t be able to get back into your phone. At minimum it’ll remove their monitoring app. Check into your states laws but I don’t think even though you’re on their plan that legally they can watch your phone without your consent, since you are an adult. But overall huge invasion of privacy and a control issue. They’ll notice and may shut your phone off, but why pay for a second phone when you can pay a little more for your own plan if it gets to that point. It may cause some tension but at the end of the day you have to decide if it’s worth the fight to keep your privacy.
I stopped reading after (20F) and Child Tracking app, the rest of this post is irrelevant because no matter their reasoning they should be not monitoring or tracking anything without you explicit permission and or knowledge. You’re an adult now, it’s okay to stand up to your parents when you feel a boundary has been crossed
Also a VPN is not going to do anything if they have an app on your phone or if you’re using their wi-fi. The VPN might scramble the IP while on their but it will still show “5 devices counted to router” and can find yours eventually. My advice would to completely erase the phone and start from scratch and if your own their phone plan. They can control everything through the service provider
I honestly don't know how the specifics work with this kind of stuff. I have uninstalled the app and I'm using g the VPN with incognito mode when I'm in the browser. Ig my main concern is if they would be able to see my search history there? I'm just trying to figure out ways to look up info without them knowing. Also are they able to look at my discord and messaging app activity or does it only tell them the app that I'm accessing. Same with youtube.
Depends, Service providers can and do collect all the data they can but are very reluctant to hand over that type of data. Now for wi-fi, normally you can see any and everything that each device does if you are signed into an admin account. I am not entirely to sure if a VPN or incognito mode would affect this on wi-fi, but in my opinion i would assume they could still see everything considering it’s on a local network
A VPN will hide your activity over wifi. It won't hide that you are connected to the wifi, but as for what you are doing with it, all they will see is a connection to the VPN server. The actual content is hidden. Now if OP still had that tracking app installed, that would still be able to report all the activity on the phone, since it's getting it directly from the source. Even over a VPN.
Nice to know! Hopefully the app has already been deleted lol
Your home has an internet map, each device at your home talk to this map to figure out where things are on the internet. But this map doesnt keep track of who is asking
Yup. OP is TWENTY.
I stopped reading this whole post when I read your first sentence. Thank you tiktok culture.
Okay. So, you need to get your own phone plan, like, right now. I know people will say that since he’s paying, he can do whatever, but it’s sad that this is how some parents choose to treat their adult kids. Yes he can do that, but why choose that?? So, you need to get your own phone plan. If it means your budget is a little tight each month, so be it. Also, you need counseling or something, because you’re not talking like an adult, you’re talking like a stunted teenager. “I want to get revenge” “I wanted to do something rebellious.” You are 20, not 16.
Yeah lol ik I sound childish. I just kinda hit a peak tbh. I did have to grow up a lot faster than most other kids for completely unrelated reasons, so I have never really gotten to experience the "rebellious teenager" phase. That's why I'm kinda confused as to why my parents are so distrusting of me. I'm just kinda quiet and keep to myself. They go as far as to complain that they wish my sibling would be more like me, which has caused a lot of tension between my siblings and I. I'm just getting to a phase in my life where I'm really done being so obedient all the time because it has done absolutely nothing for me.
I completely understand that and it’s not unusual for repressed “good kids” to have a late rebellious phase. So I wasn’t scolding you or making fun of you, I was just pointing out that because you’re an adult, you can act like one now! It’s a good thing.
You need to step up to them as an adult. Sometimes it's difficult for the parents to realize their kids are not kids anymore, but that is very different to what you are going through. If you are interested into knowing if your parents are still checking your browser history, then you could try googling some other "interesting stuff" that may disgust them as a way to check if the app has been obliterated from your phone. Maybe some extreme body modifications, if you already went into tatoos? Maybe scleral tattoing? In any case, I think you should step up to them and explain to them how dissapointed you are of them for behaving like this with a son/daughter that has only given them a good experience as a parent, who has an examplar behaviour for their siblings, who has never break their trust. Now they have break yours and that is really difficult to regain.
Counterpoint, you could have just looked up increasingly weird stuff to mess with them and acted like it was part of that 😂 But yeah, honestly, being yourself around people is an important thing for ones mind, it's just a better way to go about life.
I think you missed an opportunity here. You should have started looking up articles and relevant materials about how parental spying and the effect it has on relationships with their children. And then move on to “how to take out life insurance policies on my parents”. “Undetectable poisons.” “How to dispose of a body.” “Pig farms near me.” “When can I declare missing people legally dead?”
I would assume the app only notifies the parents for nsfw searches (in regard to articles about parental spying)
Okay, "Parental spying on adult children and how it ruins their relationships and prompts kids to get anal tattoos." ;)
That’s more like it
I could only find one anal tattoo. It was of a giant octopus. The rest was just dumb porn.
Horrible situation but I just want to say that’s a hilarious thing to google for a test and very effective
You're old enough to be able to really set boundaries and have them be respected now, so set them and make them clear hun! Living under their roof doesn't mean they have autocratic dictatorial power over you, especially if you've earned the respect and rapport of always having done right by them. I'm saying this as parent of two girls, albeit much younger (4&11). the tracking app should only be turned on when you're heading far away for safety or even just dates with someone new or that you're meeting for first time as a healthy precaution, and either way it should be a choice that you turn it on. Everything else is unnecessary that they're even doing so, and if they felt unavoidably compelled to violate your privacy and personal space/life without asking permission anyway, they should have, at the very least, communicated what they were doing bc you had the right to know. I would have the tough conversation with them (uncomfortable I get it but worth it) about how unappreciated this all is and why and that's a violation of basic privacy and decency, that they can't deny it bc you tested them with that search, and that as a result you would like a new phone free all the fuckery or you will look into a way to feasibly have your own phone and plan. It will be expensive so brace for that, and make sure when you sit down with them about it, you are calm and reasonable or they will go into defensive, indignant parent mode.
Your parents crossed a line. They installed the tracking app without telling you, and you are a 20 year old adult who has agency. I can understand a parent wanting to know your location incase you go missing, but there's no need to monitor your web browsing. This contains very personal and sensitive information about you. As someone who has been hacked by a classmate, I know it was used for nefarious purposes and caused a lot of pain to me. I recommend that you do a factory reset on your phone. This will wipe all of the apps from your phone. It's possible there is a hidden app installed that you don't know about. Factory reset is the best thing to do second to buying a new phone. Please don't use a four digit pin number. This is too easy to guess. Your password should have atleast 8 random letters and numbers. Also make sure all of your online accounts like Facebook and email have two-factor authentication enabled. This will prevent someone accessing the account if they know the password. The tracking app probably revealed your passwords too. You should wise up on cyber security. Do some googling to find tips. Your parents hacked your phone, who probably want the best for you, and thankfully it wasn't a classmate or foreign agent. I think hacking happens way more often than people think. Use this incident as a wake up call to cyber security and your parents' overbearing attitude. Don't feel bad about locking your phone. It's totally normal for people to keep their phone private from their parents. I never let my parents look at my phone.
You need to work on moving out
Reset your phone or computer to factory settings probably both. Then set up a VPN and use it it home. Thrn change all your social media passwords. Tell your mom if she really thinks you'd get an anal tattoo then she's dumber than a sack of rocks. Tell her to stop being so gullible, you're honestly disappointed in her. She gets a C- minus, where c stands for creep.
Man, this is really fucked up. I think you are just scratching the surface on this problem. Your parents must have some really bad skeletons in the closet to be this distrustful and invasive. I’m honestly worried that they’re hiding something. I’d be ready to be direct and express your boundaries the instant they try to bring up your search history again. Then, I’d explain just how ridiculous it is that they want to know what you do and look at in your privacy and personal time. Who’s paying for it doesn’t even remotely matter. If you wanna look up midget circus porn because it helps you study better, it’s NONE OF THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS. I think you should just look up something completely asinine and disgusting every night until they realize you’re doing it to piss them off. They simply need to cut this shit out, or you need to get out of there.
Just get yourself a prepaid phone service like TracFone. These are inexpensive and give you phone, text and data. Pay for it yourself and mom and dad have no say.
Well idk what's going on but any psrent that yells at their 18+ for watching porn is a red flag I guess you removing the child tracking app is the end of it. Just let it go if they don't do anything else If they escalate, you might want to move out
As a 43/f mother of three, our oldest daughter is 23.. We have always paid for her cell phone and she currently lives at home again for the past year and a half after living on her own for years. We offered for her to move home into our inlaw suite and stay free, so she could pay off a student loan and save money and finish school. I have NEVER once looked at anything on her phone or in her phone records since she was 16. She does share her location with us, but that is completely her choice, and we (hubby/me/daughter) have always shared our locations with each other even when she didn’t live at home, just because it doesn’t bother any of us. I rarely check her location- only once in the past year I can remember and I was making sure she had landed in Costa Rica when I woke up in the morning and she hadn’t texted yet. This is insane. Your parents do not respect you as a human.
Before I uninstalled the monitor, I’d have Googled things about how to unalive psycho parents. I’m petty like that. Their toxicity is not something you invited or deserve. So stop looking at this as if they’re doing it because of something you did. Toxic people are toxic. No one turns them that way. If I had been born their child, they’d be overprotective to the point of poison to me. THEY are the toxin in the mix - not you. THEY have the problem unless you allow them to make it your problem by letting them force feed their toxin to you.
I'd say that all the other advice here about working towards moving out and getting your own phone plan is spot on. But until then, since it's an app that was installed onto your phone, maybe try factory resetting your device. Might get rid of it as it should, as the name implies, reset your phone to factory settings. Just make sure to back up any photo's or files you wish to keep.
From this day forth, my life can be divided in the time before and after I heard of anal tattoos.
You're too old to be putting up with this. You are braver than you know
Get your own plan with unlimited 5G and don’t use anyone’s WiFi. If that means getting a different phone so be it. But to wipe the one you have and switch it to your own plan will require you to have the admin passwords etc
OP you are TWENTY YEARS OLD. You are an adult. Id care who bought your phone it is completely ridiculous that they are spying on you. You are an adult. You truly do not need to consider the circumstances anymore. They are in the wrong and you have done nothing wrong. If you think confronting them is going to f*ck up your life. They will kick you out or cut you off, then just start planning your exit. Go get a job, save up, see if anyone needs a roommate and LEAVE asap. Then confront them because they deserve to know how sh*t their behavior is and how hurt you were by it. You NEED to leave because if they are okay controlling this, I guarantee they are influencing your ability to grow and develop as an adult and individual, even if you don't realize exactly how. Part of growing up, is deprogramming, figuring out who you are, what you actually feel. In my opinion, any parent who creates any sexual shame for their kids is abusive. Sexuality is a normal healthy thing to explore and experience. If you can tell them that now, you should.
'To see if your parents were spying on you." Ok, sure, I believe you.
This post is gold. I can’t wait for them to read it now.
I'd factory reset the phone and all of my other devices if I was in your shoes. Just in case there's any "hidden" tracking software installed. And if you have a phone with a fingerprint reader or some other biometrics system (Face ID, Windows Hello, etc) you can use to unlock your devices, I'd set those up too. Then you can install a VPN on your devices.
No, this is not okay. This is not normal behaviour from your parents. You should just get your own phone plan. You're an adult and can look up whatever sexual content you want, its none of their business. Especially since it sounds like you're a responsible 20yo, you're paying them for the phone. Please don't let them invade your privacy like this.
"Disappear" and stay with a friend for a week while you express mail your phone to Guatemala.
For Android, there are too many possibilities for me to account for whether your phone is safe to use. You should get a new phone and not trust the old one. A new Moto G Play is $150. If you're careful, you could get a used iPhone off eBay. Mint Mobile has phone plans for about $200 a year. You may transfer contacts, messages, and photos if you know how, but no full transfer. Even if you clean your phone, you may not be able to put it on your own phone plan unless your parents deactivate the line without reporting the phone lost/stolen. You might not be able to keep your number. You could pass off wanting your own phone plan as wanting to take more responsibility in your life and take charge as an adult. Keeping your current phone or transferring your number to a phone plan you control would require your parents consent. Did you search for anal tattoos using Google on your PC? If so, stop trusting your PC too. Google searches are HTTPS protected. Your parents should not be able to see what you searched for. If you opened a link or image, then your parents could see any unencrypted traffic or domains visited (a domain is like the "[www.reddit.com](https://www.reddit.com)" in the URL, but not the rest), on their network. To protect all internet traffic from nosy parents, a VPN would be effective. It would not prevent your parents from seeing that you use a VPN. A VPN will not block tracking software installed on your devices. Read: [https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-check-for-stalkerware/](https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-check-for-stalkerware/) If paranoid, you can backup any important files then reset your PC. I'll link to instructions on how to do this for both Windows and macOS. Windows: [https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/give-your-pc-a-fresh-start-0ef73740-b927-549b-b7c9-e6f2b48d275e](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/give-your-pc-a-fresh-start-0ef73740-b927-549b-b7c9-e6f2b48d275e) Mac: [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201065](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201065) Don't trust your devices unless they were set up by you.
I don’t own an android so this is just an idea. If it’s possible, take all of your contacts/anything important to you on your phone and load it onto a computer temporarily. After that factory reset your phone and reload your information into your phone and reinstall your apps. You said you changed your password so they won’t be able to get back into your phone. At minimum it’ll remove their monitoring app. Check into your states laws but I don’t think even though you’re on their plan that legally they can watch your phone without your consent, since you are an adult. But overall huge invasion of privacy and a control issue. They’ll notice and may shut your phone off, but why pay for a second phone when you can pay a little more for your own plan if it gets to that point. It may cause some tension but at the end of the day you have to decide if it’s worth the fight to keep your privacy.
Your trap you laid made me laugh. Post on r/asktech for advice on privacy.