Bugging offices is not a crime (in UK)
Pretexting is for kids
Bugging offices in the UK is not a criminal offence, according to surveillance and legal experts speaking to OUT-LAW radio.
While recording a phone conversation is a criminal offence, someone
could place a recording device in an office legally, they said.
In an investigation into corporate surveillance techniques, the
weekly technology law podcast OUT-LAW discovered that no offence is
committed by placing a bug in a workplace to secretly record
conversations.
"There's nothing in any piece of legislation that stops you from
putting a physical bug in a room, an office or something like that
provided you are there lawfully and you haven't committed any criminal
offence to get access to it," said Victoria Southern, a lawyer at
Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.
"There is no UK law that says thou shalt not bug by means of
transmission device," said Justin King of counter-surveillance
consultancy C2i. "You wouldn't go down on criminal law, you're not
actually committing a criminal offence."
In the wake of the bugging scandal which has engulfed Hewlett
Packard, OUT-LAW investigated whether it was possible to conduct legal
surveillance in the UK, and what common practices were. It soon emerged
that placing a bug is legal.
Companies attempting this will almost certainly fall foul of data
protection legislation once they begin using the data they have
collected, said Southern.
"If the bug is recording the goings on in a particular room that
could take you into the realms of data protection. It requires that
data is processed fairly and lawfully and when you are looking at
whether data is processed fairly you look at what data subjects have
been told," she said.
"If the bug's just been planted there and no-one's been told it's
recording the particular goings on in a room then there's a good
argument that the processing could be considered to be unfair," said
Southern.
That, though, will only lead to a warning from the Data Protection
Commissioner's office, which is unlikely to be a significant deterrent
for private investigators. It could become more serious than that,
though.
"The Information Commissioner (ICO) could issue an enforcement order
which could say to the private organisation that they must cease
processing," said Southern. "If they continue to [break it] then that
could become criminal liability under the Data Protection Act."
King has another suggestion. "If you connect your microphone to the
ring mains and use 240 volts to power it you could probably be done for
theft of electricity," he said.
The rules are clearer on telephone conversations, said Southern. "If
you are recording a telephone conversation then there is a specific
criminal offence provided for in those circumstances," she said.
Hewlett Packard is still embroiled in its bugging scandal.
Californian Attorney General Bill Lockyer has filed four felony counts
against each of five people, one of whom is ex-chairwoman Patricia Dunn.
"One of our state's most venerable corporate institutions lost its
way as its board sought to find out who leaked confidential company
information to the press," said Lockyer.
No comments:
Post a Comment