Government taps 9,000 phones every month: Report

As per report of Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul, Union government issues 7,500-9,000 telephone interception orders on an average each month.

Istanbul based forum has made this report based upon statistics taken from a May 2014, 

RTI reply from the union ministry of home affairs.

What is Phone Tapping?

Phone tapping means secretly listening or/and recording a communication channel (esp. a telephone) in order to get information.

It is also known as ‘wire-tapping’ in some countries (primarily in USA).

It can only be done in an authorized manner with permission from the department concerned.

If it is undertaken in an unauthorized manner then it is illegal and will result in prosecution of the person responsible for breach of privacy.

Procedure for Phone tapping in India

Both, the Central and the State Governments have a right to tap phones under section 5 of Indian Telegraphic Act, 1885.

Section 5(2) of the amended Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, permits following agencies to intercept in case of public emergency or in the interest of public safety:

1. Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
2. Intelligence Bureau (IB).
3. Research & Analysis Wing (RAW).
4. Enforcement Directorate(ED).
5. National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO).
6. Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI).
7. Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).
8. Income-Tax Department
9. State police.

Commanding Officers i.e. Field officials of above enforcement agencies initiate the process of tapping after final command is given by Union home secretary in case of Central government agencies & state home secretary for state police.

Specific reasons have to be mentioned in the application for tapping any person phone. In the application it must be explained that how tapping will help in further investigation of the case.

The ministry considers the request and grants permission if it the reason specified seems fit, otherwise the request is denied.

The home secretary's authorisation was made mandatory by a Supreme Court judgment in 1996.

Every above mentioned agencies have an Internal Evaluation Cell to examine outcomes. The highest body to monitor lawful telephone interception is Oversight Committee headed by cabinet secretary.

Maximum for 180 days a phone can be tapped. But in this case after every 60 days, a fresh permission needs to be taken.

For maximum 72 hours authorised agencies can tap a phone without permission in case of an emergency situation. But in this case, after 72 hours permission must be taken. If permission is denied, the records of tapped conversations need to be destroyed in 48 hours.

Equipment’s used by Government agencies for authorized phone tapping

In old times the equipment manufactured by a small firm in Bangalore and tapes were used for recording.

These machines were manual and someone had to be posted to plug in the lines. Till 1992, 

one machine could tap only 10 lines.

At present wide range of snooping equipment is available.

Modern gadgets can recognize voices and automatically record a conversation.

Now, government has following Mass Surveillance projects:

• Network Traffic Analysis (NETRA)
• National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID)
• Central Monitoring System (CMS)

What can be done tapping takes place in an unauthorized manner or illegal phone tapping?

If phone tapping is undertaken in an unauthorized manner then it is illegal and will result in prosecution of the person/agencies responsible for breach of privacy.

Let’s take example of illegal tapping:

A car loaded with laptop-sized phone-interception machine is parked near the target's residence or office. The phone number of the target is fed into the machine. Once the target takes a call, it automatically gets recorded in the machine.

In this case, these machines are illegally imported into India.

In case of illegal phone tapping, the culprits can be charged with violations of the IT Act and the Telegraph Act for illegally accessing private information.

This punishment may be upto 3 years of imprisonment under Section 26 (b) of the Indian Telegraph Act.

Person whose phone is illegally tapped can file an FIR and also move the Human Rights Commission as unauthorised tapping is violation of right to privacy.

Note: Private detectives don’t have authority to tap anyone’s phone. If they are tapping anyone’s phone then it is considered as case of illegal phone tapping.