Parents rely on parenting tools to maintain the safety and balance among kids. However, despite past hacking incidents, the parental control tool has been reported to be secure. This is not to reveal technical data, but to share personal data, including personal information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, or even login credentials. Both parents’ and kids’ data are flowing over the internet.
Under timelines, discussed why these breaches occur, the main context, and the reason for major security lapses.
Devastating Security Lacks & Exposures
| App/ vendor | Date of Leak | Exposure data type | Side effects |
| mSpy | 2015, 2018, and recently in 2024 | Customer emails, Apple IDs, payment info, photos, texts, and GPS data | Hundreds of thousands of accounts breached; multiple breaches damaged reputation. |
| Retina-X (PhoneSheriff, TeenShield, SniperSpy, Mobilespy) | 2017 & 2018 | Photos, screenshots, GPS logs, passwords, messages | Two large hacks; the 2018 breach exposed nearly all customer account data. |
| TheTruthSpy | 2019–2022 (multiple), recently in 2024 | Texts, WhatsApp chats, GPS, photos, call logs | Millions of records were revealed over several years, with servers continually left unsecured. |
| SpyMaster Pro | 2017 and 2018 | Customer information accessible via non-secure API (texts, GPS) | Thousands of accounts impacted; vulnerability in backend systems exposed |
| Mobistealth | 2018 (vulnerabilities reported) and now 2025 | Sensitive logs, backend server weaknesses, and stealing gigabytes of GPS locations | No “mega leak,” but well-documented security theater. |
| SpyHuman | July 18 | Call logs, texts, contacts, | Mass exposure of communication data from multiple phones. |
| Family Orbit | August 2018 | Private photos, videos, credentials | 281 GB of family material was published – Loses credit with very severe privacy damage. |
| SpyFone | August 2018 In 2021, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) permanently banned the app. | Locations, pictures, Facebook messages, login credentials | A total ≈of 40,000+ accounts exposed; eventually, the FTC barred them. |
| CocoSpy | February 2025 | 1.8M email addresses + messages, photos, call logs, GPS | One of the largest recent exposures. The app was completely destroyed, and its infrastructure was wiped out. |
| Spyic | February 2025 | ~876,000 accounts’ messages, photos, logs, shared | Haredd backend with CocoSpy; both have since been taken down after being exposed. |
| FlexiSPY | 2017 (Multiple)March 2021. | Images, Locations, SMS, call logs, tech device info | 400+ net total of over 400 users lost terabytes due to massive security breaches. |
| XnSpy | Disclosed December 2022 | private keys, data from exposed servers, calls, messages, photos, location | Researchers discovered flaws, including residual keys and weak encryption, in a discovery that resulted in tens of thousands of compromised devices. |
With the advancement and urge to present the best parental tools, apps are rushing to incorporate advanced features into the app rather than focusing on creating strong safety measures that are not easily decoded. However, adding features to stay the top choice of parents, unaware of user attention, led to attention being merged.
Due to massive hacks that have occurred in recent years, customers have lost their personal assets, including photos, media files, confidential data, and even GPS locations. The apps claiming to be secure and reliable, such as mSpy, XnSpy, FlexiSpy, and CocoSpy, a popular parental control app, when hacked, learn that safety needs to be prioritized rather than rushing to be the best.
Despite being the safer option, it is better to choose FonSee, a transparent tool that keeps your private data secure and safe. Lightweight tools that provide advanced features, but with 100% safety. After reviewing the timelines, the apps with famous names faced issues related to privacy lapses. But FonSee to date has no complaints of safety breaches, making it more reliable, and more customers are becoming dependent on FonSee when they see the famous name with a history of leakage.
