How can I ensure my devices are safe from monitoring?

For a more thorough check, go through your phone's apps like you would on your laptop. Remove anything you don't recognize to avoid reinstalling it with backups. If you're really concerned about security, saving your important files to an external drive or cloud service could buy you some peace of mind before doing a reset. Just remember, factory resetting is the ultimate way to ensure safety if you think your brother might be tech-savvy and hiding something.

The safest way to be completely sure is to do a factory reset on both your phone and laptop. It might be a bit extreme, but it guarantees no hidden software is left behind. If you're trying to avoid that, at least check your add/remove programs for anything suspicious like remote access software. Also, look into your Windows settings to see if remote access is turned on. Consider running a different antivirus program, as it's possible for malware to trick Windows Defender into ignoring it.

Just a quick question, what did you do to get grounded? No judgment here! Just trying to gauge your situation a bit more.