You suspect that you are under surveillance. You start to wonder if your home or office is being bugged. What can you do about it? This can be done by putting some counter surveillance measures in place. The first step is sweeping for electronic bugs. In this short guide, we walk you through some of the initial things to do in order to find bugs.

First of all, stop talking about anything sensitive in your home or office. Take your private conversations outside of these environments and avoid talking about sensitive information on your phone. At the same time, don’t say that you’re doing this in these environments. If someone is listening to your conversation, they may attempt to recover the bug before it is found by a bug sweeping service. This removes any evidence that may be recovered as proof that you are under surveillance. So when contacting a technical surveillance countermeasures (TSCM) company to get them to come in and perform a bug sweep, make sure to avoid discussing this matter on any regular phones or email accounts. When contacting the company, make your phone call from a phone booth or a trusted friend or colleague’s phone – although be careful of the latter. If you have reason to suspect that your friend or colleague’s phone is also under surveillance, avoid this avenue. You could even go to a public library and create a brand new email address on a computer there for the purpose of contacting your company of choice for sweeping of bugs. But, just be sure to avoid any communication channels or equipment that you regularly use when first contacting a TSCM company.

The cost of service offered by a sweeping company is dependent on a number of factors. This include the likes of what kind of threat level is present. This can be determined from information that a company will take off of you and the kind of work you are involved in. Cost is also affected by the size of areas that need to be checked. Bigger areas or more rooms will take more time to sweep. The level of wires, cabling and technology present can also affect how long a sweep takes and, therefore, affects the price too. Often, those sweeping for electronic bugs will shut down any electronic devices before making a sweep. Some jobs may also require a team to be on-site overnight. The problem with a company coming one day, leaving, and then resuming the next day is that the bug may be removed by its owner in the periods between the sweeps. So a systematic sweep, going from room-to-room in one session is the best way to ensure that any evidence of potential surveillance can be collected.

These are just some of the basic steps that a company offering a TSCM service will provide to clients. If there are any bugs on site, you can rest assured that a professional will find the bugs. However, this also depends on the way in which you approach this problem by ensuring that any details relating to sweeping for electronic bugs are discussed in a discreet manner.