He argues that, in the absence of a UK privacy law, often the only crime involved in bugging itself, as opposed to using the fruits of bugging, is the theft of a tiny amount of the victim’s electricity. ‘Big companies think nothing about paying £20,000 or £30,000 to find out other people’s secrets,’ says Norman Bolton, head of special operations at ‘risk management specialist’ C2i International. What is legal or illegal, let alone ethical or unethical, in the world of industrial espionage is not always as clear-cut as you might suppose. An English intelligence consultant was recently called in by a bank which was subject to a blackmail attempt by an employee who had discovered by electronic hacking that it was providing a legally-questionable tax evasion scheme for its wealthier clients. Key people often incinerate their office dustbins’ contents but fail to do so at home.Įspionage can be an internal problem and not simply a case of one company spying on another.
Shredding documents is one line of defence, but they must be shredded thoroughly or dustbins will be gone through and the documents reassembled.įormer military man Paddy Grayson, who launched London operations for Kroll (now owned by US insurance broking giant Marsh & McLennan) and now helps run the GPW business intelligence partnership, says dustbins remain treasure troves, even in these high-tech times. It is universally assumed that a tycoon such as, say Phillip Green, would have used the legitimate services of an intelligence company like the famous Kroll group to find out as much as possible about Marks & Spencer and its top people before launching his hostile takeover bid.Īt such times, it is common for companies and their advisers to ‘sweep’ their offices, homes, even cars and taxis, for bugs.
The wish to know what is going on at another company can become desperate at times, especially during battles for crucial contracts or contested takeover bids. Finding out other people’s valuable secrets and building defences against others finding out your secrets is big business, as technological advances increasingly blur the dividing line between legitimate and illegitimate methods of intelligence gathering. ‘Bugging’, in all its rapidly developing forms, is one branch of corporate espionage, an activity which has become an all-pervasive feature in modern commercial life.
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