Electronic surveillance

Professional spy catchers in demand for bug-sweeping

In the trade it is known as TSCM but everyone else calls it bug-sweeping. It is not cockroaches that these pest controllers are hunting but eavesdropping devices that could be hidden anywhere from a mobile phone to the cable in the back of a computer.

Demand for the services of professional technical surveillance countermeasures specialists has grown dramatically along with public awareness of the dangers. Britain’s professional spy catchers have never been busier as businesses and wealthy individuals realise that they are being watched and listened to.

According to James Williams, director of the TSCM Institute, the only professional body covering the emerging industry, “eavesdropping is on the increase” as the number of devices and ways to bug people have multiplied.