New phone tapping rules from Monday

Telecom operators will have to play by a new set of wiretap rules from next week. By Monday, the government will be ready with stricter new guidelines for telecom firms and intelligence agencies on how to conduct phone taps.

The new guidelines will be tougher on user privacy and lay down a new chain of command to initiate phone taps, sources said on Friday. Mobile operators met senior Home Affairs Ministry and Telecom Ministry officials to finalise the new rules.

After this fourth face-to-face of telecom firms with the government since the Amar Singh case, both government and industry gathered around the view that a central agency must monitor phone taps. Government officials asked to listen in on civilian conversations may be asked to do so from outside the premises of telecom firms as well.