The founder of a company who created a company that, for more than a decade, sold consumer-grade software that allowed users to spy on the phones and other electronic devices of unsuspecting individuals faces sentencing later this year after pleading guilty to federal hacking and other charges.

Bryan Fleming, who launched pcTattletale two decades ago as a tool employers could use to keep an eye on employees or parents to track their children, reportedly pleaded guilty on January 6 in federal court in San Diego, California, to charges of computer hacking, the sale and advertising of surveillance software for unlawful uses, and conspiracy.

pcTattletale was one of a number of such “stalkerware” vendors that Homeland Security Investigations began investigating in 2021. HSI is part of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

Consumers can use such software to secretly collect data from the smartphones and other computing devices of unsuspecting people. The software is secretly installed on the victim’s device, and then it covertly transmits a range of personal data – including copies of messages, photographs, and locations – to the software vendor’s servers. The users can then view the information. Some also let users assume some sort of control over the devices, such as secretly turning on cameras or creating screenshots.

Crossing the Line

According to investigators, while Fleming peddled the pcTattletale software as a legitimate tool for employers and parents, he also encouraged its use to track spouses and intimate partners without their knowledge, which violates federal law.

In a 2022 affidavit to support a search warrant for Fleming’s house in suburban Detroit, a HSI investigator noted that in its first 10 years, pcTattletale was pitched as a way parents could track their children online, and in 2012, expanded the scope of its marketing to include employees.

“Seized emails further show that, since at least 2016, FLEMING and pcTattletale have knowingly assisted customers seeking to spy on nonconsenting, non-employee adults,” the investigator wrote.

The HSI agent also went undercover during the investigation, posing as both an affiliate marketing partner and a customer. As an affiliate, the agent received promotional material describing how the pcTattletale software could be used to catch a cheating spouse, how it can be installed without the victim’s knowledge and remain undetected, “and that the application will allow someone to covertly see everything that is happening on the target cell phone, to include text messages,” he wrote.

There reportedly also were financial records linked to Fleming, indicating that by the end of 2021, he was doing hundreds of thousands of dollars in transactions. While stalkerware vendors often will not reveal the identity of their owners, Fleming publicly linked his name to pcTattletale.

The Beginning of the End

Fleming in 2024 shut down pcTattletale’s operations after a massive data breach that exposed sensitive information about its customers. It also included data that was stolen from the victims of the software. Fleming, at the time, told TechCrunch that pcTattletale was “out of business and completely done.” Malwarebytes researchers reported in 2021 that the company was doing a poor job of securing the screenshots the software was collecting, and in 2024 wrote that other security analysts noted that its APIs could be compromised and that a bug could allow attackers access to the company’s backend infrastructure.

In November 2025, Fleming sold his home, from which he operated pcTattletale, for more than $1.2 million, and last month, the HSI agent’s affidavit was made public.

U.S. federal agencies for several years have been taking a hard stance against spyware, such as NSO Group’s Pegasus and Paragon’s Graphite software, that is used by governments to track journalists, dissidents, activists, and others. Malwarebytes reported in June 2025 about a 147% increase in spyware for Android devices.

The Ongoing Stalkerware Threat

The more consumer-focused stalkerware falls into this category, though it tends to be used more against intimate partners and similar victims. Its use is widespread. The HSI agent investigating pcTattletale noted in his affidavit that there were more than 100 websites selling stalkerware applications as of 2022, with some advertising the software for use in monitoring children and employees, which is legal.

“I also saw that some sellers were specifically advertising and marketing the software applications for use in surreptitiously spying on spouses and partners, which is not legal,” he wrote.

Kaspersky analysts in their State of Stalkerware 2023 report that almost 31,000 mobile users around the world were victims of such applications, with David Emm, a security and data privacy expert at the cybersecurity vendor, saying in a statement that the report’s “findings highlight the delicate balance individuals strike between intimacy and safeguarding personal information.”

Researchers with Malwarebytes, a founding member of the Coalition Against Stalkerware, wrote in 2024 that one of their reports the year before found that 62% of people in the United States and Canada “admitted to monitoring their romantic partners online in one form or another, from looking through a spouse’s or significant other’s text messages, to tracking their location, to rifling through their search history, to even installing monitoring software onto their devices.”

Referring to the pcTattletale breach, they added that “given the low security of the apps available to home users, this is extremely concerning. Installing monitoring software is not just a huge invasion of privacy; there is a big chance that it will backfire.”