I have an iPhone through my company. From my understanding, Apple does not allow any software onto their i* devices that does not come from the app store. I got into a discussion with a coworker about how IT can track the phone. Is there any keyboard loggers, or other spyware that could be installed which would allow a company to track employees actions outside of the traditional email client?
I know text messages show up on a monthly bill through the carrier. If texting through Google voice, I'm assuming that would be unreadable, since it is a third party app and uses a data connection?
Best Answer
Companies can choose to provide in-house apps to employees through the iOS Developer Enterprise Program without listing them on the Apple iOS App Store.
What you're asking about mainly falls into the realm of MDM (Mobile Device Management). One of the popular MDM solutions on iOS is Afaria, from SAP. Installation of the MDM app is made a mandatory requirement by some companies in order to allow employees to connect to corporate email (and other services). An MDM solution can be used to setup apps, accounts, impose corporate policies/restrictions on specific features and also enable remote wiping of the device through the provisioning of profiles.
Due to the
application sandbox
restrictions imposed by iOS, the MDM application does not have complete control over the device to snoop across every other application on the system and the OS. It cannot log keystrokes, network communication or data from the apps you use.Read through the iPhone in Business page for details. Here are some relevant snippets:
A few more points to note on this topic: