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Wiretapping or telephone tapping is the monitoring of telephone conversations or internet data transfer by a third party secretly. Though wire tapping by government agencies like the police for security reasons is legal, it is often misused for corporate espionage and is consider an invasion of  privacy in many countries. Many companies routinely tap the telephonic conversation of  their employees.

The technology for tapping a standard landline telephone is simple. The telephone line can be tapped at any point between the residence/office and telephone exchange by simply connecting another telephone in parallel. Since the person under surveillance may speak on the phone at any time,  it is cumbersome for a person to monitor the conversation personally. A tape recording device may be used which gets activated when the telephone call starts and stops recording when the call ends.

Since most tapes can only record conversations for a limited duration, a radio frequency (RF) transmitter may be used to transmit the conversation to the listener. For exchanges using digital technology, tapping is simpler and can be ordered by law enforcement agencies through software. It  can also be done at the digital switch in the telephone network. Most wiretaps cannot be detected, though people often mistake crosstalk for wiretaps.

To prevent your telephone conversations from being monitored, check the telephone line regularly for new joints or wire connections. Mobile phones conversations can also be intercepted and the movements of  the user monitored using the  unique international mobile equipment identification (IMEI) associated with each mobile phone.