Cell Phone Technology

Kelvin

Kelvin

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Is the technology available to record a cell phone of an employee without the employee knowing the calls are being recorded?

Can these call be listened in real time?

Can the payer of the bill (employer) get transcriptions of text conversations?

I have a buddy that seems to think his employer is recording his calls on the company cell phone...I thought I would throw this out to the minds here...this seems a bit tough to do without software installed.

Does anyone here have insight into this being possible or not?
 
Best to just assume you employer is recording all of your calls made on the company phone and behave on said phone in such a manner as to not let that be a problem for you.

And yes there are a lot of apps that will record in stealth mode.
 
Kelvin said:
Is the technology available to record a cell phone of an employee without the employee knowing the calls are being recorded?

Can these call be listened in real time?

Can the payer of the bill (employer) get transcriptions of text conversations?

I have a buddy that seems to think his employer is recording his calls on the company cell phone...I thought I would throw this out to the minds here...this seems a bit tough to do without software installed.

Does anyone here have insight into this being possible or not?
Click to expand...

Is it possible? I can't see why not. Different options at different ranges change the complexity of the problem, but as long as the phone has a datalink, one should be able to do it in near real time.

To do it in 'store forward' mode sending along a recording of every conversation in a stealth email would be simple.

The first question that comes to mind though is, "Does your friend have hollow cheeks?"
 
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SixPapaCharlie said:
Best to just assume you employer is recording all of your calls made on the company phone and behave on said phone in such a manner as to not let that be a problem for you.

And yes there are a lot of apps that will record in stealth mode.
Click to expand...

Yeah...for sure...I have worked for 'me' for 25+ years...

I am not so curious about it being possible 'with' apps being installed...I am wondering if it is possible WITHOUT apps installed.

If so...I hope someone will explain it to me...
 
Kelvin said:
Yeah...for sure...I have worked for 'me' for 25+ years...

I am not so curious about it being possible 'with' apps being installed...I am wondering if it is possible WITHOUT apps installed.

If so...I hope someone will explain it to me...
Click to expand...

At the employer level through the phone network, it would have to be through a network provided service, I don't think at the commercial level that it is possible to 'hack' into the phone. While technology to do so may exist, the ability to implement it is lacking. Although with the changes in technology, this may no longer me correct.

The person to ask is Scott Migaldi, he would know.
 
Henning said:
At the employer level through the phone network, it would have to be through a network provided service, I don't think at the commercial level that it is possible to 'hack' into the phone. While technology to do so may exist, the ability to implement it is lacking. Although with the changes in technology, this may no longer me correct.

The person to ask is Scott Migaldi, he would know.
Click to expand...

Scott gave me a great answer.
 
what makes your buddy seem to think this ?
 
B350ATP said:
what makes your buddy seem to think this ?
Click to expand...

Me too, it would have to be under extremely strange circumstances that an employer would go through this kind of effort rather than terminate the employee.
 
Henning said:
Me too, it would have to be under extremely strange circumstances that an employer would go through this kind of effort rather than terminate the employee.
Click to expand...

Employers can be very "strange"
 
Kelvin said:
Does anyone here have insight into this being possible or not?
Click to expand...


This is highly, highly unlikely. However, it is a legal gray area.

Sure the tech exists. Sure it can be pushed out by policy using an MDM platform.

Frankly, it's a scumbag move on the part of a business leaders if they engage in these behaviors. I've gotten requests from line level managers to tag company app transactions with GPS data for the purpose of seeing where the employee was when they entered data into the app. I refuse. We're not going to track employees, regardless of who owns the device and pays for the account.
 
I'm glad I left corporate america. Our company had lots of these issues and it was amusing when their inane corporate policy bashed into the law.

For instance, they decided for liability reasons that all emails will be destroyed after 60 days. The problem is that as a medical device manufacturer we're pretty much required to keep any correspondence from customers and/or patients forever. The corporate attorney's head exploded over that one.

There other smart phone example was when they decided that the only way to access corporate email was either though a (company-issued) blackberry or via a company laptop with some poorly functioning encrypted VPN software. Formerly we had web access (using an RSA token). I pointed out to them that a large number of our people spend all their working day at secure facilities where they are permitted access to neither a cellphone nor a carried-in laptop, but there were unclassified kiosks where they could get a web browser to the internet. I don't think they ever resolved that one.

They then extolled upon the virtue of instant messaging as a more responsive way of communicating and then blocked access to any external IM sites (and of course external people can't get at the company linx server). So much for being responsive to the customer. Amusingly the reason given was that they were afraid someone might send a "link" from the outside. Well, duh...don't click on links. They don't do any filtering for links in email or block people from reading me a URL over the phone.

Yep, I carried a corporate phone (blackberry) and my personal phone and never the twain mixed them....
 
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It's possible with an app installed on the phone. If it's a company phone with mdm software, it can be done that way. The app can be hidden. If it's a personal phone under a BYOD policy, an MDM app can likewise allow this.

Even though the three-letter-agencies and law enforcement can do it in a variety of ways in the cell system, that's not the same thing.

Not smart, though.

This is a key reason I won't co-mingle work phone and personal phone.
 
Considering how cheap and easy phones are to get, it's not that fruitful to go through the effort of 'bugging' one phone. If something illicit is being done, most likely they would not use the phone that has potential exposure.
 
Henning said:
Excellent, care to share? I figured since he knows the even the future technology in depth.
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He said no way...impractical.

...to actually record a call is tough. You would have to be in a position to hear both the cellphone and the base station that is serving that phone. You would then need to know exactly what channel that call is taking place on and have a pretty sophisticated receiver.
Click to expand...


B350ATP said:
what makes your buddy seem to think this ?
Click to expand...
His boss was running his mouth...bluffing really...a few of his coworkers took the bait...my buddy called BS
 
I agree that this is a scumbag move on the part the company...even if it were so.

To even have a supervisor bring it up is asinine...even more so if were actually happening. This guy was peacocking and got called out...

The phone does not have a stealth app installed as it was picked up at the Apple store factory fresh.

I think it boils down to this supervisor just being an ashhole...

I know if I had a team member that I had to monitor like this thread suggests, I would let him/her go as soon as this level of scrutiny became an "option". Life is too short.
 
Kelvin said:
He said no way...impractical.
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Yeah, pretty much what I figured. If it wasn't a 'Business Level' service sold by the carrier, it isn't happening. The access to the infrastructure where you have to go to do that is not a place with what one would call ready access.
 
Every month I get a complete summary of every phone call made and received including the made to/received from phone numbers, date, time, and duration of the call for every company cell phone. Ditto for texts. For me to review who and how often my employees are calling is simple. For me to concern myself with the content of the calls is unimaginable. I truly don't care what they say but it's easy to trace who they're saying it to. Always has been. Every cellular statement I've ever seen includes that information.
 
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Kelvin said:
He said no way...impractical.
Click to expand...

Unless one has a Stingray (or another "legal intercept" device), and then has that device in a place where it can hear the cellphone. Stingray is not sold to private companies, just law enforcement (including prisons).

It is completely impractical over a wide area.

His boss was running his mouth...bluffing really...a few of his coworkers took the bait...my buddy called BS
Click to expand...

Good for him.
 
Stewartb said:
Every month I get a complete summary of every phone call made and received including the made to/received from phone numbers, date, time, and duration of the call for every company cell phone. Ditto for texts. For me to review who and how often my employees are calling is simple. For me to concern myself with the content of the calls is unimaginable. I truly don't care what they say but it's easy to trace who they're saying it to. Always has been. Every cellular statement I've ever seen includes that information.
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And having the time to do so, usually isn't a good use of it.

Our phone bill runs about four inches thick, double sided, in a font small enough that I need my reading glasses. And it's a small bill compared to most places. I have seen printed bills for call centers need six reams of paper or more.

I skim it most months looking for signs of fraud, and dig into it completely about once a year. And that only because there hasn't been a year where I haven't found at least some fraud or misuse that needs to be addressed.

Hint: Watch the bills around the holidays. Idle hands and all that, is true. If an employee is screwing around and doing something with company assets that's inappropriate on the phone bill, it'll usually be during the company's slow time.
 
ggroves said:
This is highly, highly unlikely. However, it is a legal gray area.

Sure the tech exists. Sure it can be pushed out by policy using an MDM platform.

Frankly, it's a scumbag move on the part of a business leaders if they engage in these behaviors. I've gotten requests from line level managers to tag company app transactions with GPS data for the purpose of seeing where the employee was when they entered data into the app. I refuse. We're not going to track employees, regardless of who owns the device and pays for the account.
Click to expand...

That.

If I thought my company was that paranoid as to record conversations, I'd find a new place to work, or just do my own thing.
 
Kelvin said:
Is the technology available to record a cell phone of an employee without the employee knowing the calls are being recorded?

Can these call be listened in real time?

Can the payer of the bill (employer) get transcriptions of text conversations?

I have a buddy that seems to think his employer is recording his calls on the company cell phone...I thought I would throw this out to the minds here...this seems a bit tough to do without software installed.

Does anyone here have insight into this being possible or not?
Click to expand...

If the employer owns the phone, signed the contract for it and pays the bills... That employer has EVERY right to see all the calls and text messages.......
If the employee is that paranoid, they need to buy their OWN cell phone AND find a new job... IMHO...
 
N801BH said:
If the employer owns the phone, signed the contract for it and pays the bills... That employer has EVERY right to see all the calls and text messages.......
If the employee is that paranoid, they need to buy their OWN cell phone AND find a new job... IMHO...
Click to expand...

We're not talking about the bill and the number, we're talking about the call content itself.
 
Henning said:
We're not talking about the bill and the number, we're talking about the call content itself.
Click to expand...


I understand... That is way I said the employer should have access to the TEXT messages.... As for voice,, the employer should have access to that too if there is a way to record it....... For the reasons I gave earlier....

If an employee is concerned about the boss listening to his/her calls on a company phone then that says volumes about their actions using company equipment....

I they are not doing any thing wrong,,,, What are they worried about.:dunno::dunno::dunno::confused:
 
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