Audio Surveillance Systems

“Audio Surveillance Systems” are used for capturing conversations between people at a certain place with a view of analyzing it to detect any malicious intent planning. “Audio Surveillance Systems”also sometimes include phone call recorders which are capable of recording conversations on the cell phone and the telephone. Although, it has always been debatable as to, whether, tapping telephone calls is an invasion of privacy or not; it has been in place and used widely since long. With the help of some “Audio Surveillance Systems”one can remotely listen and monitor room sounds also. All this is indeed the boon of the recent advancements in technology which have led to the shrinking in the size of audio equipment including the proverbial microphone.

In the United States, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) has been passed & it revolves around phone tapping. This act requires that all telephonic and other voice communication including VoIP be available for analysis to the Federal law agencies. Consequently, telephone and cell phone service providers like AT & T and Verizon have contracts with the government which require them to keep their phone call records organized and easily searchable.

“Audio Surveillance Systems” are also aided by the speech-to-text software which can create machine interpretable text from captured intercepted audio. Then, there exists automated call analysis programs from providers like Verint and Narus which search for certain suspicious words and/or phrases in the audio conversations. “Audio Surveillance Systems”including the mobile phones can often be commonly used to capture location data also.

Proponents of the use of “Audio Surveillance Systems”regard safety as the prime basis for justifying the usage of “Audio Surveillance Systems”. However, opponents arguing against the use of “Audio Surveillance Systems” suggest that it is a major form of invasion of privacy. It also hampers the freedom of expression and civil liberties. Owing to this, in some countries, it is mandatory to obtain a NOC (No Objection Certificate) from the governing body before proceeding to tap and/or monitor someone’s telephone calls. All this is mostly achieved with the help of tiny microphones which can be easily masqueraded to be hidden from anyone’s sight.