Or alternatively, don’t even mention you have such an app and when they ask if you had anything to do with the phone getting wiped, you say “hmm that’s odd, it must been some sort of hardware failure, I’ve heard that [Phone’s Manufacturer] have had some issues with quality control, perhaps that’s the reason”

You’re not lying, you’re just suggesting a possible reason: hardware failure. And every manufacturer had quality control issues, it wouldn’t be odd for you to have heard about such news, or even just rumors amongst people about a company’s quality control issues.