How to Tell or Identify If Your Phone Is Tapped by Police?

How to tell if your cell phone is tapped by law enforcement

Are you wondering how to check if your phone is tapped by police or law enforcement? Finding out if police are tapping your phone is more accessible today with the advancement of technology. While it’s challenging to identify wiretapping over landline phones, for a cell phone, there are companies and apps that can assist in identifying a phone tapped by the police.

Certain companies can inform you if a fake antenna is tapping your phone, or if the police are trying to hack your phone to get into your private phone conversations and messages.

However, the antenna that is being used to identify if police tap a phone doesn’t involve encrypting your calls or text messages. These antennas will only inform you that your phone is being tapped.

Can Police Tap Your Phone Without You Knowing?

Yes, your cell phone can be tapped by the police without you ever knowing. There are a couple of different ways they can go about it – putting a physical bug on your phone or connecting to your ISP and gathering all your calls and SMS data. However, there are certain rules they must follow before they can tap your phone. Unless they’re certain that collected data can be used as evidence in court, they probably won’t be able to get a warrant to tap your phone.

Why Would Police Want to Tap My Phone?

There are several reasons why police would tap your mobile. For policy reasons, they might need some valuable information that they may need in an ongoing investigation. Whatever may be the reason, there is a way to know now that someone is trying to tap your mobile phone.

Tracking applications, like mSpy, are increasingly popular due to many hackers wanting access to hack valuable information from your phone as everyone is solely dependent on the net. Thus, there are more spy and call blocker apps available online.

How to Know If Your Phone Is Tracked By the Police

how to tell if your phone is tapped

Wondering: Can anyone listen to someone’s phone calls without them knowing for free? Yes, they can! Because our phones are connected to the cloud, it has never been easier for the police to tap phones and track your data. Here are some of the most common signs that show that your phone is being tracked by the police:

1. You’re Having Difficulties Turning Off Your Device

If you are having special issues in turning off your mobile like it keeps freezing up or fails to shut down properly. It could be a sign that it is compromised, and there might be a spy app installed on your device.

  • The backlight remains on even after your device shuts down

2. Decreased Phone Battery Life

Unauthorized background programs installed on your phone are probably responsible.

  • The phone heats up more than usual.
  • Your phone’s battery lasts a lot less than usual.

3. You’ve Noticed Some Unusual Activity

Inexplicable activities on your device may indicate that it is bugged. If there are weird or unexplainable activities that are not usually on your mobile, especially if you are not using it, it could be a sign that someone is trying to hack or target your mobile account. Some of these could include –

  • You are receiving strange coded SMS texts with weird characters.
  • Strange pop-up ads from malware or spyware apps that you didn’t install.
  • Screen distortions and program installations without you doing them

4. Background Noise When Making a Call

Hearing strange, suspicious background noises coupled with other signs might mean your phone has been tapped.

  • Inexplicable static, clicking or high-pitched murmurs
  • Static signals and unusual background noise when you make a call.
  • A low-frequency sound bandwidth sensor goes off when checking for inaudible sounds on your phone networks.

5. Electronic Interference

You encounter electronic interference from cell phones and surrounding devices even when you’re not connected on a call.

  • Your FM radio or television emits a high-pitched sound when you’re device is close to it.

6. You’re Phone Is Spending More Data Than Usual

If you notice increased call data usage or SMS usage, there’s probably a phone tapping software that’s responsible for it.

  • There’s spyware transmitting information from your phone to a receiving device.
  • You run out of data sooner than you usually do.

Can an iPhone Be Tapped By the Police?

Yes, even mobile data from an iPhone can be tapped by the police. Because they usually tap someone’s phone because they’re participating in illegal activities, most companies and internet service providers will cooperate and provide them with the necessary actions to prevent any potential crimes.

Code to Check if the Phone Is Tapped

Dial these USSD codes to know if someone’s tapping your phone.

*#21# — checks if your calls and messages are being diverted to other devices.

*#62# —provides information on where the phone calls and messages are being redirected to.

##002# — deactivates all diverts.

What to Do if Your Phone Is Tapped

Now that you know how to know if your phone is being tracked by police, here’s what you can do if it is.

  1. Get your phone services provider to help

If you tell them that you suspect your phone is being tapped, they’ll do a line analysis check using specialized equipment to detect illegal phone tapping.

  1. Get the police to help

They would use specialized equipment to test for illegal tapping on your phone and catch the culprit responsible for it.

Claire York author
Claire York

I am a journalist turned private detective researching most spy apps and their effectiveness. Apps, the internet, technology and cybersecurity have always been of interest to me. I turned this passion into a career after leaving my journalistic career at a well-known firm.

In overseeing all the important content development for this website, I go beyond what is being sold, detailed, advertised, reviewed, and trying to uncover everything there is to know about these applications.