- The Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 governs the use of wired and wireless telegraphy, telephones, radio and digital data communication.
- GOI has exclusive jurisdiction for establishing, maintaing, operating, licensing, and oversight of all forms of wired and wireless communication in territory.
- Used by British Raj to quell rebellions and consolidate info.
- Authorizes govt law enforcement agencies to monitor/intercept and tap phone communications on the lines of Indian telegraph rules 2007; IT rules 2009
- Telephone tapping- by introducing a bug/ extra load in the circuit of two telephones in the form of additional phone to listen to the conversation.
- Cellphone tapping: older days- by radio scanner which searched the devices between two frequencies and receive the voices in scanner’s microphone; recent technique- recently found glitch “that handset authenticates itself to network rather than the network authenticating itself” allows interceptors to poses as the network or base station, decrypts the encoding, releases the signal to open network.
Why important? Donald Trump wiretap accusation