Daughter discovers stepdad Put a tracker on phone after moving out

Privacy is something most adults expect, but sometimes even well-intentioned actions from family can cross the line.

A 27-year-old woman living independently found herself questioning where that line goes after discovering her stepfather had been secretly tracking her phone location.

According to a recent post on Redditthings began to unravel when she noticed her phone battery draining unusually quickly.

After digging into her settings, she found a location sharing profile linked to her stepfather’s email via the family sharing feature.

“It showed my last ten trips including the nights I stayed with my boyfriend,” she wrote. “I never agreed to this.”

Shocked and deeply uncomfortable, she confronted her stepfather over Sunday dinner and asked him why he added her phone number without permission.

According to him, “It was a safety plan for his ‘girls’ and that if I wasn’t hiding anything it wouldn’t matter.”

Her mother also supported him, brushing off the breach of privacy and calling her “ungrateful for everything he’s done for us.”

Despite the family’s defense of what they considered to be concern, the poster felt “sick”, especially given that she is financially independent, does not live at home and was never informed or asked to participate in any form of tracking.

In response, she took action: “I deleted the profile, changed my passwords and I told them I won’t visit them until he apologizes and removes everything else associated with my accounts.”

Instead of understanding her perspective, her decision was met with backlash. The family group chat called her “dramatic” and accused her of scaring her 14-year-old sister by “making a scene”.

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Now she is stuck between feeling offended and guilty. And as the holidays approach, she wonders if she should “go low contact until they respect my privacy.”

Commenters were quick to reassure the original poster that she wasn’t “overreacting” and that her feelings were valid.

One user wrote: “I’m a stepmom to a young adult and I can’t imagine doing something like that.”

Another suggested she “check all other devices etc and make sure he’s cut off,” adding that they thought the stepfather was acting “creepy and controlling.”