It’s probably happened to everyone, accidentally dialing the last number dialed or a speed dial from your cell phone, or receiving such a call from someone you recently spoke with and being able to listen to the other party riding in their car, listening to the radio, carrying on with their life unknowing that you are listening. Although fairly common, this can create serious security concerns. I was in a security meeting at one organization with department heads and the Secret Service discussing the arrival of the President of the United States to an ongoing conference. An assistant of the person next to me came up to her and explained that she just received a voice message on her phone that was a recording of the entire conversation at our meeting. She was a victim of butt-dialing. The last call the department head had made was to the assistant, then she accidentally did a last-number redial (by pressing and holding a single digit), and her call went to the assistant’s voicemail box, recording five minutes of our security meeting. Luckily that call remained within the ranks, but it could just as easily have been to a pizza shop, hair dresser, kid’s soccer coach, or taxi service.
We also receive numerous calls from nervous clients who think they are victims of technical harassment. They report that someone has bugged their office (or their car) and left recordings of their private conversations on their own voicemail. You see, the last number they called was to check their voicemail, so if they trigger the “last number redial” function they end up calling their own voicemail box and leaving a message for themselves. When we explain the butt-dialing syndrome, often they don’t want to accept it and would rather believe that they have been the focus of a high-tech spy operation. There are other significant indicators we look for to help determine if someone may actually be bugged. In most of these butt-dialing cases, the odd voicemail is the only incident that has occurred.
Know your phone, what features can you control? Can you deactivate single digit dialing? Activating your lock screen will also be a big help, not just to keep prying fingers away from your device, but because when the screen is locked, it will not be accepting keypad commands that could trigger dialing. You can also set the automatic lock screen delay to a short duration so that it locks quickly when you put it away.
Here are a couple of related incidents.
‘Butt-Dialing’ Lawsuit Cites Federal Wiretap Act December 12, 2013 (UPI)
CINCINNATI (UPI) — An Ohio airport board member filed a lawsuit against an administrative assistant who shared information she overheard when he accidentally called her.
Jim Huff, a member of the Cincinnati airport board, filed a lawsuit against an airport administrative assistant stating he accidentally called her while discussing firing another board member and the woman recorded the call and shared the information,WKSU reported Thursday.
Kent State University professor Mark Goodman said Huff’s lawsuit cites the Federal Wiretap Act, but the law only applies to calls that have been intercepted.
“The law doesn’t explicitly define that word. And certainly the courts have never confronted this situation, at least that I’m aware of. So what they’re going to have to do is decide, ‘Is so-called butt-dialing interception?’ And I’m not very confident that most courts would agree with that notion,” Goodman said.
Goodman said Huff might have a difficult time proving his case because he was the one who initiated the call.