Telephone tapping

Legal status

Lawful interception is officially strictly controlled in many countries to safeguard privacy; this is the case in all liberal democracies. In theory, telephone tapping often needs to be authorized by a court, and is again in theory, normally only approved when evidence shows it is not possible to detect criminal or subversive activity in less intrusive ways. Oftentimes, the law and regulations require that the crime investigated must be at least of a certain severity. Illegal or unauthorized telephone tapping is often a criminal offense. In certain jurisdictions, such as Germany and France, courts will accept illegally recorded phone calls without the other party's consent as evidence, but the unauthorized telephone tapping will still be prosecuted.