Baby Bag Wiretap
One of the more prevalent problems we are asked to investigate is the illegal use of miniature electronic recording devices in family law matters. A few years ago, an attorney asked us to do an analysis of a small electronic device her client had found in his baby’s diaper bag. The attorney explained that the client was involved in contentious child custody battle with baby’s mother, and they suspected that she had been surreptitiously recording the client during his weekend visitations with the child.
Our investigators collected the device from the client and did a visual comparison of it online. A similar device was found advertised on Amazon.com, and described to be a covert, voice-activated digital recorder. One of our digital forensic examiners then did a forensic examination of the device. He recovered several audio recording files date stamped from the weekend when the device was first discovered. He also recovered dozens of deleted recordings with date stamps that went back six months.
The attorney was able to use our investigative report outlining our findings about the device in her client’s custody case
Finally, our examiner retrieved a deleted voice recording that, when played on a computer, sounded like the child’s mother doing a sound check of the device. The file was date stamped when the device first started making recordings. The attorney was able to use our investigative report outlining our findings about the device in her client’s custody case, and the client contacted the local police department and filed criminal charges against the mother for violations of wiretapping laws.