Most advice about surveillance stops at the phone. That was reasonable ten years ago. Now a woman can leave the phone at home, take a car, and still be watched, and the devices doing it are cheap, small, and sold openly.
This is what else to think about. None of it is exotic and none of it requires him to be technical.
The car
A tracker is a matchbox-sized object with a magnet and a battery, and it costs very little. It is fitted in under a minute, and there is no skill involved.
Where they are usually put:
- Underneath, held by a magnet, near the bumper or behind a wheel arch where there is metal and shelter.
- Inside the boot, under the mat or with the spare wheel.
- Under a seat, or inside the seat pocket.
- In the glove compartment, taped behind something.
- Plugged into the port under the dashboard on the driver’s side, where a diagnostic device sits. That one has a permanent power supply and never needs charging.
- Behind the number plate or inside a bumper cover.
Look for something that does not belong: a small box with no wires going anywhere useful, fresh tape, a clean patch on a dirty underside, or a wire that has clearly been added. A mechanic you trust will find one in fifteen minutes and it is worth asking for exactly that rather than a general service.
Many newer cars also have a manufacturer’s tracking feature attached to an account. If he set the car up, the account may be his, and that reports location without anything being installed at all. The same is true of a car bought on finance where a tracker was fitted by the lender.
Before you remove anything
Think about it for a minute first, because removing a tracker tells him you know.
If you are still living with him and not ready to act, a device that suddenly stops reporting produces a confrontation, sometimes a dangerous one. It may be better to know it is there and behave accordingly — use another vehicle for anything that matters, and let the car keep telling him the ordinary story.
If you have already left, or you are about to, remove it or leave the car. A tracked car driven to a new address gives away the address, and there is no way to use it safely.
Photograph anything you find, in place, before you touch it. It is evidence, and it is relevant to a protection order.
Other things in the house that report
- Smart speakers and cameras. Indoor cameras marketed for security, a doorbell camera, a baby monitor. If his phone can see it, he can see and often hear the room. Check what is plugged in that you did not choose.
- Item tags. Coin-sized trackers meant for keys and luggage, dropped into a handbag lining, a child’s bag, a coat pocket or the spare wheel well. Most modern phones will warn you if an unknown tag is travelling with you, so do not dismiss that notification if it appears — it is the single most useful alert on a phone.
- The children’s devices. A watch or a phone given to a child with location sharing turned on shows where the child is, which is where you are. This is the route people forget entirely.
- Shared accounts. A family account on a phone, a shared streaming or shopping account, a shared photo library. Location, purchases and photographs flow through these without anybody installing anything.
- The car of a relative, or a driver, or a security man at the gate. Not a device, but the same effect, and much more common than a tracker.
How to check without a specialist
You cannot reliably detect a tracker with an app, whatever the app claims. What you can do is a physical search and a review of accounts.
For the car: park somewhere private, take a torch, and look under the front and rear, in the boot, under the seats and at the port beneath the dashboard. Run a hand round the wheel arches. Twenty minutes is enough.
For the phone and accounts: check which devices are signed into your accounts and remove the ones you do not recognise, check what is sharing your location and with whom, and check whether a photo library is syncing anywhere. How to go through a phone properly sets this out step by step.
For the house: walk round once looking specifically at plugs and small objects with a light on them. Anything you did not put there is worth a question.
The pattern that tells you before you find anything
Very often a woman knows she is being tracked long before she finds a device, because of what he knows.
He mentions a place you did not tell him about. He calls at the exact moment you arrive somewhere. He knows how long you were parked. He refers to a journey in a way that makes no sense unless he saw it. That knowledge has to come from somewhere, and if it is not a person then it is a device.
Believe that pattern. Women in this situation routinely doubt themselves, are told they are imagining it, and turn out to have been right. How this is done in general covers the rest of it.
If you cannot get rid of it
Work around it rather than fighting it.
Use a different vehicle for anything that matters — a taxi, a friend’s car, public transport. Leave the tracked car somewhere ordinary and complete the journey another way. Keep the pattern of your normal movements unchanged, because a sudden change in behaviour is itself a signal.
Do not take a tracked car, or a phone you cannot trust, to a new address, a lawyer’s office, a shelter or a police station. That is the single most common way a location is lost.
It is a criminal matter, not a technical one
Fitting a tracker to a person’s car, monitoring them without consent and using that information to follow them is not a grey area. Nigerian law covers stalking and harassment, and the VAPP Act addresses conduct of this kind directly.
Evidence helps enormously here, because this is one of the few forms of abuse that leaves a physical object. Photograph the device where you found it, keep it if it is safe to, note the date, and keep any message where he refers to knowing something he should not. What to do when it continues after you have left deals with the longer problem.
Questions people ask
Can an app find a tracker in my car?
Not reliably, whatever the app says. A physical search with a torch, or fifteen minutes with a mechanic you trust, is what actually works.
Should I remove it as soon as I find it?
Not necessarily. If you are still living with him and not ready to act, a device that goes silent produces a confrontation. Photograph it, leave it, and use a different vehicle for anything that matters.
My phone warned me an unknown tag was travelling with me. Is that real?
Yes, and it is one of the most useful alerts a phone gives. Do not dismiss it. Search your bag, your coat, the children’s bags and the car.
He always knows where I have been but I cannot find anything. Am I imagining it?
Probably not. That knowledge comes from somewhere — a device, an account, or a person. Women in this position routinely turn out to have been right.
Is tracking me actually against the law?
Following, monitoring and harassing a person is covered by Nigerian law, and a tracker is unusually good evidence because it is a physical object. Photograph it where you found it and keep the date.
If you need help now
If you are in immediate danger, call 112. To talk to HealBridge, call or send a message to +2348025170267, or use the form on our contact page. Every page on this site has a Quick Exit button at the top right, and pressing the letter E three times does the same thing.
Before you rely on anything on this page
We publish these articles so that you can understand a subject and work out what to ask for. They are written carefully and in good faith. They are still general information about how things usually work, and not advice about your situation, which we do not know.
- This is not legal advice.
- We are not a law firm. Criminal law in Nigeria is largely a state matter, the VAPP Act applies in a state only if that state adopted it, and statutory, customary and Islamic marriages are governed by different law and different courts. Two people with the same facts can have genuinely different options. Get advice from a lawyer who practises where you live — and if cost is the obstacle, ask us, because arranging that is part of what we do.
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- It may be out of date, or wrong for where you are.
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- We cannot promise an outcome, and we cannot make anybody safe.
- A protection order is a piece of paper backed by an enforcement system that is inconsistent. A plan works until the day it does not. Anybody in this field promising safety is selling something, and the promise itself is dangerous because it stops people planning.
Do not let this notice stop you acting. If you are in immediate danger, call 112. If something is medically urgent, go to a hospital — you do not need a police report to be treated. And if you do not know where to start, that is a normal way to begin: use the contact page and we will take it from there.
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