Phone Hacking Scandal: Worldwide Privacy Violations

Your cell phone is your personal connection to the world around you. It contains all your personal information, such as phone numbers, addresses, emails and important dates. Some smartphones enable you to access your office network, surf the web, take photo and video footage, visit social networking sites and a variety of other personal activities. All of this personal data becomes vulnerable when your wireless device is hacked and anti-virus software cannot help you. This is what many actors, athletes, models, politicians and even members of the British Royal Family discovered during the recent News of the World (NoW) phone hacking scandal.

Arrests are still being made and charges are still being filed in what is the largest phone hacking scandal in the world. The practice involves illegally intercepting phone calls and voicemail messages using a variety of methods. The most common method exploits a vulnerability in smartphone programming that anti-virus software cannot fix. Many mobile phones are programmed with a default personal identification number (PIN) the phone owner can use to access his or her voicemail from a landline. If the caller knows the mobile number and the default PIN, he or she can get into the voicemail. Many phone owners never bother to change this PIN.

Journalists at NoW routinely used this vulnerability to gain personal information about celebrities so they could write exclusives in their tabloid. Although many suspected their phones had been hacked, there was no proof until 2005 when Prince William also suspected his phone had been hacked. The prince was involved in conversations with ITV royal correspondent Tom Bradby to borrow a portable editing suite when the news became public in a story in NoW. Because only two other people were aware of the agreement, the prince and Bradby suspected that someone had accessed their voicemails. Prince William's plans to visit a knee surgeon had also become public, even though details of the visit had not been released.

An inquiry by Metropolitan Police followed, and the phone hacking scandal was born. The Counter Terrorism Unit became involved because of its responsibility to provide protection to the British Royal Family. Clive Goodman, the NoW royal editor, and a private investigator hired by the paper were arrested and charged with illegally accessing the phones of the royal family. Although this seemed to close the case involving Prince William, additional evidence pointed to other offenses.

The investigation discovered that as early as 2000, reporters were using these phone hacking techniques to land exclusive stories. The phone hacking scandal gained steam when investigators discovered that the telephone of Sarah Payne, a media campaigner, had been accessed during the investigation of her child's murder. Payne's eight-year-old daughter was killed by a pedophile in July of 2000. Rebekah Brooks, then editor at NoW, had given the phone to Payne during the murder investigation so she could keep in touch with key people and supporters.

Public outrage strengthened when the phone hacking scandal revealed that victims included family members of the victims of the July 7, 2005 London bombing, cell phones of recently-deceased British soldiers and their families, and the cell phone of serial-killer victim Milly Dowler. Access to Dowler's voicemail added charges of interfering in an investigation because journalists and private investigators who hacked her phone also deleted some messages.

News of the World published its paper for 168 years before the phone hacking scandal forced it to shut its doors for good on July 10, 2011, but the repercussions are still being felt around the world. News of the World was published by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation, the second-largest media conglomerate in the world. News Corporation is headquartered in the United States and owns the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and 20th Century Fox Television, among others.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder launched investigations into the United States divisions of News Corporation on July 14, 2011 to determine whether the phone hacking scandal was limited to the United Kingdom or if it had spread.

News Limited, the Australian division of News Corporation, has also welcomed an investigation, saying it had no part in the phone hacking scandal. That investigation is still underway as of August 2011.

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