Glossary of Eavesdropping Devices – Common Terms
🔊 Audio Surveillance / Listening Devices
- Bug
- Wiretap
- Listening device
- Covert microphone
- Hidden mic
- Body wire
- Lapel mic
- Pin mic
- GSM bug
- Audio transmitter
- Voice recorder
- Parabolic microphone
- RF (Radio Frequency) bug
- Remote listening device
- Phone tap
- Line tap
- Tapped line
- Hot mic
- Mic’d up (often used in entertainment, but implies live audio monitoring)
🎥 Visual Surveillance / Watching Devices
- Spy camera
- Hidden camera
- Nanny cam
- Button cam
- Pin-hole camera
- Mini camera
- Covert video device
- CCTV (in specific covert use cases)
- Lipstick camera
- Glasses camera
- Dashboard cam (dashcam)
- Clock camera
- Smoke detector cam
- Camcorder bug (used in fiction occasionally)
- Remote viewing device
- Mobile phone compromise
📡 Tracking and Transmission Devices
- Tracker
- GPS tracker
- Beacon
- Transmitter
- Locator bug
- RF tracker
- Tag
- Ping device
- Homeland beacon (seen in espionage fiction)
- Geo-tagging device
🕵️♂️ Colloquial / Fictional / Espionage-Inspired Terms
- The wire
- The tap
- The plant
- The feed
- The bug
- The eye
- The ear
- The mic
- Surveillance kit
- Eavesdropping tool
- Sniffer (in some tech thrillers)
- Spy tech
- Surveillance bug
- Electronic ear
- Room tap
- Sound trap
- Listening post
- Watcher
- Snooper
- Fly on the wall (metaphor, sometimes literal in fiction)
🧳 Everyday Objects Often Used as Concealment (Contextual Terms)
These aren’t device names per se, but frequently used to hide ‘bugs’ and referred to often as ‘trojan’ devices or concealments:
- Alarm clock
- USB charger
- Plug socket
- Smoke alarm
- Power bank
- Pen
- Watch
- Key fob
- Wall clock
- Book spine
- Picture frame
- Light switch
- Rock