Many defend the practice of pretexting as a useful way for companies to keep track of their competition.
Technology for Spying Lures More Than Military
By JULIE CRESWELL and RON STODGHILL
In the world of security sleuths and private investigators, it’s billed as one of the biggest events of the year. Some 20,000 experts in the business are gathering this week in San Diego to check out the latest in high-tech surveillance gadgets and sit in on seminars discussing undercover investigations, background checks and interrogation techniques.
One of the keynote speakers is George J. Tenet, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
But many of those attending the ASIS International “Maximum Security” conference will not be there on behalf of the United States government or the military. They work for corporate America, where security is a big and sometimes controversial business, as the executives of Hewlett-Packard have found in the wake of revelations of a covert-operations spying scandal that the company conducted against its own directors and journalists.
There’s no word whether executives from Hewlett-Packard are attending the conference to take in seminars like “Rules of Engagement: The Impact of Security Services Contracts in Future Litigation” or “Trusted Insiders — Preventing Betrayal in High-Risk Times.”
But while H.P. may be in the spotlight for the spying imbroglio in its boardroom, it is far from alone in diving into the murky world of private investigators and secret surveillance.
Companies worldwide spent an estimated $95 billion on security last year, according to the Freedonia Group, a market research firm in Cleveland. While that’s a broad figure that includes spending on emergency planning in case of a terrorist attack and protecting corporate records from hackers, an increasing portion went to high-tech equipment like spyware and specialized data-mining software that was deployed in-house so companies could better see what their own employees were up to.
Outside their offices, corporations are also turning to a vast network of large consulting firms and local ex-cops-turned-detectives that can supply all sorts of personal information and run surveillance on competitors, executives and directors using techniques worthy of the C.I.A.
Read more news about this : Technology for Spying Lures More Than Military
Comments