The people, methods and technologies behind modern surveillance - broadcast on Radio 4 26th May 2003

Bugging is big business. Now that technology can give us ever more sophisticated listening devices, the temptation to spy on others is growing. Gareth Mitchell looks at the individuals, methods and technologies behind modern surveillance and finds out what it is like to be bugged.

Gareth Mitchell goes underground with a team of surveillance specialists to learn the tricks of the trade when it comes to planting - and finding - bugs. And he reveals the surprise finding that there's no privacy law in the UK to protect us from prying eyes and ears.

Surveillance is no longer the preserve of the secret intelligence services. You only have to flick through the classified advertisements at the back of the newspaper to find a private investigator happy to spy on someone on your behalf. In Being Bugged Gareth spends the afternoon with Marie Louise from Answers Investigations on the trail of an estranged wife, but rapidly finds that much of a private investigators life is more hum drum than high glamour.

He also goes on the trail of the equipment used in eavesdropping and discovers that for the right money, anyone can walk into a spy shop and fill their basket with the very latest high-tech bugging equipment. In the programme, Gareth meets Michael Marks, manager of Spymaster in central London, which offers off the shelf surveillance devices hidden in everything from alarm clocks to a computer mouse.

On the other side of the equation, Gareth also spends the evening with a team of former special-forces personnel from Genric, a security consultancy based in Hereford, who offer counter surveillance services. As more and more businesses become aware of the need to protect their information, counter surveillance sweeps are becoming more common place. In the semi-darkness, nothing looks out of place, but the team from Genric soon sweep the room and sniff out the hidden devices. Using high tech equipment they detect a bug hidden in a board rubber, uncover a tap on the phone and show Gareth a tiny microphone that could be transmitting their words hundreds of meters down the street.

Events like this are becoming more common place in the corporate world, but as Gareth finds out, anyone can be bugged or find themselves the subject of covert surveillance. In Being Bugged , JohnWadham of the civil rights group, Liberty, calls for more effective privacy legislation in the UK. As the law stands, it's illegal to tap someone's phone but not illegal to plant a listening device in their home or office. “Mary” – not her real name – claims she was put under surveillance by her husband. Telephone taps, bugs and car tails became an everyday part of her life. Unable to stop these intrusion into her privacy by law, she sought the advice of a counter surveillance expert to finally put a stop to the surveillance.

Gareth also meets the families of soldiers who died under mysterious circumstances at the Deepcut barracks in Surrey. Since launching a campaign to find out what happened to their relatives, the Deepcut families say that they've been bugged. They've heard strange clicks and whispering voices on the ‘phone, detected listening devices in their living rooms and even encountered smartly dressed men in pin-striped suits with no shoes on hanging around their porch in the middle of the night.

Being Bugged delves into these secret worlds and asks whether the surveillance industry is making a killing out of our paranoia and what the implications are for our personal privacy?