Had a cell phone detector been around, it would have picked up the
world’s first ever cell phone call being placed in the dark ages of the
twentieth century, a few months after the end of the Apollo moon
program, before most people had heard of the Internet, and long before
the invention of the World Wide Web. The date was April 3, 1973, and the
device was a Motorola “brick” weighing more than four-and-one-half
pounds and measuring some nine inches by five inches by
one-and-three-quarter inches.
The dimensions of cell phones have shrunk dramatically in the
intervening years, while their capabilities have grown exponentially, as
has cell phone ownership. Their sophistication and ubiquity pose many
security challenges, and have given rise to a demand for equally
sophisticated cellular phone detection.
Cell phone detector applications
In addition to being able to make old-fashioned phone calls, today’s
phones allow text messaging, photography, and recording and real-time
transmission of audio and video. In short, they provide a wide variety
of ways of recording and communicating information. In addition, the
tiny size of modern phones makes them fiendishly difficult to detect if
you are trying to prevent their introduction and use in a particular
location. In many cases, it is simply not acceptable to pat down
visitors and guests to make sure they are not secreting a phone on their
person.
And there are plenty of times and places you might not want a cell phone
to be used. They are a perfect tool for espionage, whether in military
or government installations, or for industrial espionage. Security
personnel at all such locations frequently deploy cell phone detection
measures to assure the security of their information. In other
circumstances, they can make possible various kinds of illegal
activities, such as in prisons and other correctional institutions: a
cell phone detector for prisons is a common application, for example. A
mobile phone detector, or a network of them, can also be used to monitor
for inappropriate transmissions in a casino, or to ensure that workers
in a hazardous area are not using a cell phone that may distract them
and cause an accident. These are just a few of the situations in which
it is invaluable to deploy a mobile cell phone detector.