San Francisco Bug Sweeps by Certified TSCM Specialists
We find hidden cameras, listening devices, GPS trackers, and wiretaps — confidentially, anywhere across San Francisco.
CITYWIDE · 24/7
Private, certified counter-surveillance — across the Bay Area.
From downtown San Francisco high-rises to the trading floors of the Financial District and the venture firms of Silicon Valley, San Francisco's executives, attorneys, and high-profile residents face real surveillance risk. Bugged deploys certified TSCM specialists across San Francisco to detect and remove hidden cameras, audio bugs, GPS trackers, and compromised devices — discreetly, and on your schedule. Every sweep is law-enforcement-grade and completely confidential.
Recording laws in California: what you need to know.
California is an all-party consent state under Penal Code § 632. Recording a confidential conversation without the consent of everyone involved is illegal — and a hidden device capturing your private conversations can be found and documented.
Confidential conversations — all-party
Everyone involved must consent before a private call or in-person conversation is recorded.Public settings — privacy exception
Recording is generally allowed where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a public place.A § 632 violation can bring fines up to $2,500 per violation and up to a year in jail (a misdemeanor or felony), plus civil liability. If you suspect you are being recorded or watched without consent, a professional sweep confirms it and documents the evidence.
Certified protection you can actually trust.
Law-enforcement-grade TSCM — discreet, thorough, and completely confidential. Here’s what sets our specialists apart.
Full Privacy Protection
We secure every space where your private conversations and information live.
- Hidden cameras & microphones
- Phone taps & wiretaps
- GPS & tracking devices
- Wi-Fi & network intrusions
Fast Forensic Detection
We identify threats fast — active, dormant, or disguised — without disrupting your day.
- Active & dormant sweeps
- RF & spectrum analysis
- Physical & thermal checks
- Same-day results
Whole-Property Coverage
Every room, device, and vulnerable point is checked — nothing overlooked.
- Offices, homes & vehicles
- Boardrooms & meeting spaces
- Devices, networks & phones
- Entry points & blind spots
Expert-Led Service
Every sweep is led by certified TSCM professionals using law-enforcement-grade equipment.
- Certified TSCM specialists
- Law-enforcement-grade gear
- 100% discreet & confidential
- Clear, documented findings
- 25+ years counter-surveillance
- Former law-enforcement trained
- Multi-state licensed & insured
- TSCM re-certified annually
Protect every meeting. Start with a sweep.
Talk to a certified TSCM specialist.Free · Confidential · No Obligation
Schedule a ConsultationThe same instruments trusted by governments — on every sweep.
We invest in the industry’s top-tier counter-surveillance technology so nothing stays hidden — from corporate high-rises to private residences.
REI OSCOR Green
- Sweeps 10 kHz–24 GHz in about one second
- The spectrum-analyzer standard for government, military & law-enforcement TSCM
- Catches transmitters consumer detectors miss
REI ORION 2.4 HX
- Detects the circuitry inside bugs, cameras & recorders — on or off
- Locates devices concealed in walls, furniture & fixtures
- The gold standard for hidden-device detection
REI MESA 2.0
- 10 kHz–6 GHz coverage (to 18 GHz with downconverters)
- Dedicated Wi-Fi, Bluetooth & mobile-band detection modes
- Built for fast, room-to-room scanning
FLIR T865
- 640×480 thermal resolution at <30 mK sensitivity
- Reveals concealed electronics in walls, ceilings & furniture
- Lab-grade thermal accuracy (±2°C)
The press calls Bugged on counter-surveillance.
Three decades of casework covered by national outlets and the security community.
Featured In National Media
Real cases, real coverage — watch Bugged's specialists break down surveillance threats on air.
Real Cases. Real Results.
Three decades of high-stakes counter-surveillance — from corporate wiretaps to nation-state espionage.
Common reasons for a professional sweep.
Signs your San Francisco home or office may be bugged.
Surveillance rarely announces itself. These are the subtle tells our Bay Area clients notice most often.
Information only a few people knew is somehow leaking out
Clicks, echoes, or volume changes on your phone line
Wall plates, outlets, or smoke detectors look slightly moved
Unexpected gifts or new décor from an unknown source
Radio or TV interference near certain spots in a room
Unfamiliar vehicles parked nearby for long periods
⚠ If you suspect a device, call us from a different location — not the room in question.
Serving all of the San Francisco Bay Area.
San Francisco Bug Sweeps
From Financial District towers and SoMa to the law firms of Montgomery Street, San Francisco executives and attorneys trust Bugged for discreet, same-region response.
The Peninsula & Silicon Valley
From the Financial District and SoMa to Palo Alto, Menlo Park and the wider Bay Area, we cover the region with the same certified TSCM service — confidentially.
How a San Francisco sweep works.
Confidential call
Tell us what you are seeing or fearing. We plan the visit discreetly around your schedule.
On-site sweep
Certified specialists arrive unmarked with law-enforcement-grade detection equipment.
Detect & document
Every threat is located, shown to you, documented, and removed when possible.
Protect going forward
You get clear findings and a practical plan to stay secure.
Meet the expert behind the nation's most advanced counter-surveillance work
With more than three decades of hands-on TSCM experience, Michael Peros is one of the most accomplished counter-surveillance specialists in the United States. Trained directly by top intelligence operatives and recognized for uncovering some of the largest illegal wiretapping operations in American history, he leads every case with unmatched technical expertise and investigative precision.
What people are saying
Three decades of high-stakes cases — in the words of the people we protected.
Thanks, Michael, for discovering an illegal hook-switch bypass in our conference room — a bug that cost us billions. Even when the company couldn't be saved, it kept Lorenzo out of the airline industry for good.
Peros uncovered over 65,000 illegal intercepts. That evidence led to the case being thrown out — and earned praise from the U.S. Inspector General's Chief Investigator.
Michael Peros, our White Knight, saved us from malicious prosecution when we were wrongly charged with our child's murder. Exposing the illegal microphone hidden in our bedroom was key to prevailing — all charges dropped.
Michael saved me $3M in legal fees and protected 12 other defendants. He uncovered illegal wiretaps and a hidden “Brady Bug” in my office — what's considered the largest illegal wiretapping case in U.S. history.
Michael found a TK-400 Japanese audio bug hidden behind my desk. He saved my billion-dollar company — the greatest TSCM counter-surveillance engineer there is.
Thank you, Michael Peros, for saving my professional horse track from financial disaster by exposing 13 illegal wiretaps on the phones.
If any of this sounds familiar, it's time to reach out.
Frequently asked questions
Straight answers to what clients ask most — discreet, certified, and judgment-free.
Yes — we serve the entire Bay Area, from the Financial District, SoMa and Pacific Heights to Palo Alto, Menlo Park and the wider Peninsula. Tell us the location and we schedule discreetly.
If you notice unusual device behavior, unexplained clicking, rapid battery drain, people knowing private information, or a general feeling of being watched, a sweep can confirm whether a device is present. Most clients book one simply for peace of mind.
A certified TSCM specialist performs a full inspection of your space using advanced equipment to detect hidden microphones, cameras, transmitters, GPS trackers, wireless taps, and other surveillance tools. The sweep is discreet and non-destructive.
Yes. All communication, scheduling, and on-site work are completely confidential. Technicians arrive discreetly, use unmarked equipment, and share findings with no one but you.
Most residential or small-office sweeps take one to three hours, depending on the size and complexity of the space. Vehicles, phones, and specialized environments may vary.
Your technician will show you what was discovered, explain how it works, and remove it when possible. You'll get clear guidance on next steps and how to protect yourself going forward.
Your privacy deserves protection today.
Get fast, discreet help from certified San Francisco specialists who uncover the truth and restore your peace of mind — across the Bay Area, 24/7.
San Francisco TSCM Services & Bug Sweeps Certified TSCM Specialists
Suspect an audio bug in a SoMa boardroom, a hidden camera in a Marina short-term rental, a GPS tracker on a car parked in Pacific Heights, or spyware on a founder's laptop? Bugged.com performs certified, confidential bug sweeps across San Francisco and Silicon Valley with military-grade equipment and 35+ years of counter-surveillance experience — in one of the most heavily targeted corporate-espionage environments in the world. Same-day and after-hours deployment available.
Financial District · SoMa · Mission Bay · Nob Hill · Pacific Heights · the Marina · Palo Alto · Menlo Park · Mountain View · San Jose · Oakland, Berkeley and the wider Peninsula.
Why San Francisco Needs Expert TSCM Services
Nowhere concentrates more high-value, easily-monetized information than the Bay Area. A leaked product roadmap, an intercepted term sheet, or a recorded board conversation can move a valuation by hundreds of millions before it is ever public. The people at risk here are founders, partners, general counsel, and executives — and the adversaries range from a competitor and a departing employee to sophisticated, well-resourced foreign intelligence services with a documented, long-standing interest in U.S. technology.
That risk spans a small set of very specific rooms: SoMa and Mission Bay startup offices, Sand Hill Road and San Francisco VC boardrooms, Financial District law firms and banks, and the Pacific Heights, Sea Cliff, Nob Hill, Marina, and Peninsula homes where those same conversations continue after hours. Add IPO and M&A diligence rooms, AI and semiconductor labs, and biotech facilities in Mission Bay and South San Francisco, and the target surface is enormous.
The Bay Area Risk Profile Is Different
San Francisco is also one of the most RF-dense cities in the country: dense 5G, thousands of overlapping Wi-Fi networks per block, and a population that installs more connected devices per household than almost anywhere on earth. That noise is exactly why consumer "bug detectors" are useless here — they light up constantly. And the Bay Area's exposure rarely stops in the city: a founder's threat model usually includes an SF office, a Peninsula home, a car, a phone, and a laptop that travels between all of them.
Professional Bay Area TSCM requires military-grade spectrum analysis, non-linear junction detection, thermal and optical inspection, and genuine network forensics — the last of which matters more here than almost anywhere, because in a tech environment the most valuable "bug" is often a rogue device or implant sitting quietly on the corporate network, not a microphone in the wall.
Common Threats We Detect in San Francisco
Risk Scan- ✓ Audio bugs in SoMa and Mission Bay startup offices, Financial District boardrooms and Sand Hill Road VC partner rooms.
- ✓ Rogue devices and network implants on corporate Wi-Fi — the highest-value vector in a tech company, targeting source code, models and roadmaps.
- ✓ Hidden cameras in Pacific Heights, Sea Cliff, Nob Hill and Marina residences, executive suites, and Mission or Marina short-term rentals.
- ✓ GPS trackers on personal, executive and corporate vehicles across the city, the Peninsula and the East Bay.
- ✓ Compromised smart-home and IoT devices — cameras, doorbells, assistants and AV systems — in large city and Peninsula homes.
- ✓ Dormant, non-transmitting devices found only by non-linear junction detection and physical inspection.
- ✓ Wiretaps and VoIP interception affecting technology, venture, legal, financial and family-office communications.
Concerned about a conversation, room, vehicle or office in the Bay Area?
Speak confidentially with a certified TSCM specialist about a sweep anywhere in the Bay Area.
Our Comprehensive San Francisco TSCM Services
Every Bay Area environment carries a different threat profile. A SoMa startup floor, a Sand Hill Road board meeting, an IPO diligence room and a Sea Cliff residence each require a different sweep methodology. These are the services San Francisco and Silicon Valley clients ask for most.
Startup & Tech Office Bug Sweeps
Counter-surveillance for SoMa, Mission Bay, the Financial District and Peninsula campuses, where a leaked roadmap, model or cap table is worth more than the sweep by orders of magnitude.
VC Boardroom & Partner-Meeting Sweeps
Sand Hill Road and San Francisco venture offices: partner rooms, pitch spaces and IC meetings where deal terms, valuations and investment theses are premium intelligence targets.
IPO, M&A & Diligence Room Sweeps
Clean, documented conference and data rooms before a funding round, acquisition, IPO roadshow or board decision — the moments when a single intercept is most valuable.
Law Firm, Deposition & Litigation Sweeps
Financial District and Embarcadero conference rooms cleared before depositions, arbitrations and settlement talks — including adjacent spaces, shared walls and the AV equipment in them.
Executive & Founder Residence Sweeps
Discreet sweeps of Pacific Heights, Sea Cliff, Presidio Heights, Nob Hill, Russian Hill, the Marina and Peninsula homes — residence, home office, smart-home systems and vehicles as one connected environment.
Hidden Camera Detection for Homes & Rentals
Optical lens detection, thermal imaging, RF analysis and network scanning for covert cameras in the Mission, Hayes Valley, North Beach, the Marina and Peninsula short-term rentals — including local-record devices that never transmit.
Vehicle GPS Tracker & Audio Detection
Full chassis, cabin, wheel-well and OBD-II inspections for personal cars, executive vehicles and corporate fleets across San Francisco, the Peninsula and the East Bay.
Hotel Suite & Meeting-Space Pre-Sweeps
Pre-arrival sweeps of suites and private meeting rooms in Nob Hill, Union Square, SoMa and near SFO, so a room booked by someone else is not a room you have to trust blindly.
CyberBugged Network & Device Forensics
Detection of Wi-Fi implants, rogue access points, cellular bugs, stalkerware and remote-access tooling on corporate networks and the phones and laptops that leave the building every night.
Ongoing Protection Programs & Recurring Sweeps
Scheduled recurring sweeps for Bay Area funds, startups, family offices and executive households — because a boardroom that was clean before the last raise is not necessarily clean before the next one.
Need a confidential TSCM sweep in San Francisco?
Speak directly with a certified specialist about your office, residence, vehicle, hotel suite or meeting space anywhere in the Bay Area.
Bug Sweep & Counter-Surveillance Coverage Across San Francisco & the Bay Area
The Bay Area is not one market — it is a dense mesh of them. The surveillance risk in a SoMa startup is not the risk in a Sea Cliff estate, a Sand Hill Road boardroom or a Mission Bay biotech lab. We deploy across the city, the Peninsula and the East Bay, and plan arrival times around real bridge and commute traffic, not map estimates.
Downtown, FiDi & SoMa
Banks, law firms, startups and the deal rooms where valuations move.
- Financial District & Jackson Square — bank, law firm and corporate boardrooms in the Montgomery and Embarcadero towers, plus pre-deposition sweeps near the courts. Shared-wall and shared-HVAC risk is high in older buildings.
- SoMa & Yerba Buena — the densest concentration of startup, SaaS and AI offices in the city; network-implant and boardroom-bug risk is the primary concern.
- Mission Bay — biotech, life-sciences and enterprise campuses where lab data and clinical IP are the targets.
- Union Square & the Tenderloin edge — hotels and meeting spaces used for off-site negotiations and board dinners; pre-arrival suite sweeps.
- Hayes Valley & Civic Center — creative studios, government-adjacent offices and short-term rentals.
Northern & Waterfront SF
Executive residences, family offices and high-visibility homes.
- Pacific Heights & Presidio Heights — founder, executive and family-office residences with extensive smart-home and staff access — the most common exposure point.
- Sea Cliff — large coastal estates swept as a single environment: residence, home office, network and vehicles.
- Nob Hill & Russian Hill — high-rise residences and clubs where shared building systems widen the attack surface.
- The Marina & Cow Hollow — residences and a very high density of short-term rentals with recurring hidden-camera concerns.
- North Beach & Telegraph Hill — residential and hospitality properties, including rental sweeps.
Central, Mission & South SF
Creative offices, converted live-work space and dense IoT.
- Mission District — agencies, converted live-work offices and one of the city's highest concentrations of short-term rentals with hidden-camera concerns.
- Potrero Hill & Dogpatch — design, hardware and startup offices, plus loft residences with heavy smart-home deployment.
- Noe Valley, The Castro & Bernal Heights — executive and founder residences and home offices.
- Sunset & Richmond — residential sweeps and home-office network forensics across the west side.
The Peninsula & Silicon Valley
Where the venture and product-development risk actually concentrates.
- Palo Alto & Menlo Park — Sand Hill Road venture offices, startup HQs and University Avenue professional suites. Standard work for us: sweep before the round, not after the leak.
- Atherton, Woodside & Portola Valley — large estates for founders, partners and executives, swept with full discretion.
- Mountain View, Sunnyvale & Cupertino — corporate campuses and the residences of the people who run them.
- Redwood City, San Mateo & Burlingame — corporate offices, professional practices and residential properties along the mid-Peninsula.
- San Jose & the South Bay — semiconductor, hardware and enterprise offices, plus fleet and vehicle sweeps.
The East Bay
Corporate, institutional, research and established residential.
- Oakland — corporate offices, port and logistics organizations, and law and professional practices near the courts.
- Berkeley & Emeryville — research, biotech and startup offices where academic and commercial IP overlap.
- Piedmont & the Oakland Hills — executive residences and family properties.
- Walnut Creek, Lafayette & Danville — corporate offices and residential sweeps in the inner East Bay.
Marin, Wine Country & Beyond
Because Bay Area exposure rarely stops at the Golden Gate.
- Marin County — Sausalito, Mill Valley, Tiburon, Belvedere and Ross residences and home offices for city-based executives.
- Napa & Sonoma — second homes, estates and private off-site meeting venues.
- The Coastside & Half Moon Bay — retreat properties and off-site executive gatherings.
- Sacramento & the Central Valley — corporate, government-adjacent and fleet operations for Bay Area clients.
Not seeing your Bay Area neighborhood?
The list above covers where we work most often, not the limit of where we go. If you are anywhere in the nine-county Bay Area — the Peninsula, the South Bay, the East Bay, Marin, or a property you would rather not name over the phone — call and describe the environment in general terms. We will tell you honestly whether a sweep is the right response, what it would involve, and how quickly we can be there.
Book a sweep in your part of the Bay Area
Confidential briefing first. No details required until you are comfortable.
CyberBugged in the Bay Area: Defending Against Entangling Attacks
The surveillance we find in the Bay Area today rarely looks like a single hidden microphone. Threat actors deploy coordinated networks of devices designed to work together and to look harmless individually. Bugged.com calls these Entangling Attacks.
A typical Entangling Attack on a Bay Area target combines several vectors at once — a dormant implant on the corporate network, an RF audio bug in the boardroom, a compromised smart-home camera at the founder's residence, and a GPS tracker on the vehicle that connects them. Each device transmits in short, fragmented bursts, timed to hide inside the ordinary Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular traffic of a dense San Francisco or Peninsula building. No single device tells the whole story. Sweep the boardroom alone and you will miss it.
The CyberBugged protocol answers that with a multi-vector deployment: physical RF detection, non-linear junction scanning, thermal and optical inspection, network forensics and behavioral signal analysis, run together across every environment the target actually uses — office, home, vehicle and devices. If a competitor, a foreign actor or a hostile litigant has targeted you, a single-room sweep is not enough.
Learn About CyberBugged Protection →Protocol Multi-vector defense
The San Francisco Deployment Process
From your first confidential call to the final written report, every Bay Area sweep follows the same structured, discreet, evidence-focused sequence.
Secure Briefing
You describe the environment, who has access and what made you suspicious. Call from a device and location you trust. Everything discussed stays confidential.
Discreet On-Site Arrival
We arrive in unmarked vehicles, in plain clothes, at your SoMa or Financial District office, a Peninsula campus, a Pacific Heights residence or anywhere in the Bay Area — scheduled around bridge and commute traffic and, when needed, after hours.
Multi-Vector Live Analysis
Spectrum analysis, non-linear junction detection, thermal and optical inspection and network forensics — across rooms, furniture, fixtures, the corporate network, vehicles and connected devices.
Documentation, Removal & Debrief
Anything found is photographed, documented and preserved as evidence before removal. You receive a written report suitable for counsel, plus practical guidance on closing the gap that let it in.
Need a discreet Bay Area deployment?
Speak confidentially with a certified TSCM specialist and arrange your sweep — same-day availability for urgent situations.
Why Choose Bugged.com for TSCM in San Francisco?
Anyone can buy a detector and call themselves a sweep company. Bay Area clients — startups, VC firms, law firms, family offices and founders — need documented experience, genuine discretion and reporting that survives contact with a courtroom.
A Federal Case on the Record
The Key Bank case — 65,000+ unauthorized intercepts, the largest illegal wiretapping case in U.S. history — was broken by Bugged.com. Bay Area clients do not hire us on faith. They hire us on record.
Nation-State & Corporate-Espionage Experience
The Bay Area is a primary global target for both foreign intelligence collection and competitor espionage aimed at technology IP. We have detected and documented devices linked to sophisticated actors — prior exposure to that class of tradecraft is not optional here.
Discretion in a Small, Connected Ecosystem
The Bay Area tech and venture world is tightly networked — word travels fast. We have never disclosed a client name, case detail or location: not to media, not to law enforcement, not to anyone absent a court order. Unmarked vehicles, plain clothes, after-hours scheduling.
No Junior Technicians on Your Sweep
Every Bay Area sweep is performed by a certified Bugged.com specialist — the same person who has worked federal cases, not a trainee dispatched on a routine call.
Built for California Law
California is an all-party consent state, and Bay Area courts have specific expectations about how evidence is collected and documented. We document findings with that context in mind and work alongside your counsel.
Evidence-Ready Reporting
Every confirmed finding is photographed, logged and written up in a report your attorney, corporate security team or insurer can actually use — not a verbal "you're clear."
Equipment Matched to the Bay Area's RF Environment
San Francisco and the Peninsula are among the noisiest, most device-dense RF environments in the country. Our spectrum analysis, non-linear junction detection, thermal and network tooling is chosen to separate real threats from the wireless clutter that makes consumer detectors useless here.
Honest Answers, Including "You're Clean"
A large share of Bay Area sweeps find nothing — and we say so plainly rather than manufacturing a threat. If the real problem is a leak, an access-control gap or a compromised device rather than a bug, we will tell you that too.
Need proven counter-surveillance in San Francisco?
Speak confidentially with a certified Bugged.com specialist about your office, residence, vehicle, hotel suite or sensitive meeting location.
Entangling eavesdropping attacks & the quantum surveillance threat.
Can an attacker listen to a quantum-secured link without being detected? Bugged.com and Michael Peros are pioneering Cyberbugged TSCM — the next generation of technical surveillance countermeasures, built for the quantum era.
We work at the front edge of detecting and defending against entangling eavesdropping attacks, AI-driven surveillance and advanced threats aimed at quantum communication protocols such as BB84.
This matters in the Bay Area sooner than most places. Quantum-secured links and post-quantum research are already being piloted across finance, defense-adjacent tech, and the AI and semiconductor companies concentrated in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. For those environments, traditional TSCM alone is no longer enough.
View the Full Cyberbugged TSCM Case →Entangling Eavesdropping Attacks
Next-generation interception exploiting quantum entanglement — invisible to conventional sweep equipment.
AI-Powered Surveillance
Listening systems that wake on keywords, classify conversations and exfiltrate selectively — a growing risk in Bay Area tech, venture and finance offices.
BB84 Quantum Protocol Vulnerabilities
Weaknesses in quantum key distribution that could compromise finance, aerospace and defense communications.
Spyware & Digital Intrusions
Mobile and network forensics for stalkerware, commercial spyware and remote-access tooling on the devices your team carries across the Bay Area every day.
Signs You May Be Under Surveillance in San Francisco
Most people who call us are not certain — they have a pattern they cannot explain. None of the indicators below prove surveillance on their own. Together, or repeated, they are a reason to have the environment checked properly rather than talked yourself out of it.
Information Behaving Strangely
- ✓An opposing party, competitor or ex appears to know terms, plans or schedules discussed only in one room.
- ✓Deal details, casting, release plans or settlement positions surface before you announced them.
- ✓Private conversations are quoted back to you — accurately, and out of context.
- ✓Someone appears at a location you never shared publicly.
Physical Signs in the Space
- ✓Evidence of entry with nothing taken — a moved smoke detector, a re-seated ceiling tile, fresh drywall dust, a plate that no longer sits flush.
- ✓New objects nobody claims: a phone charger, USB hub, clock, air purifier or power strip that simply appeared.
- ✓Furniture, artwork or fixtures slightly out of position after a service visit, showing or open house.
- ✓Recent unsupervised access — contractors, stagers, cleaners, a departing employee or household staff member.
Technical & Network Symptoms
- ✓Unfamiliar devices on the home or office Wi-Fi, or an access point you did not install.
- ✓Smart cameras, doorbells or assistants behaving oddly — indicator lights, unexplained reboots, settings that change themselves.
- ✓Phone battery draining fast, running warm at idle, or unexpected data usage after someone else handled it.
- ✓Persistent interference, echo or clicking on calls from one specific room.
Vehicle & Movement Patterns
- ✓Someone consistently knows where you have been — across neighborhoods and at times you told no one.
- ✓A small box, magnet-mounted unit or unfamiliar wiring in a wheel well, bumper cavity, trunk liner or OBD-II port.
- ✓The same vehicle appearing on unrelated routes — the Bay Bridge, a Peninsula commute, a SoMa garage.
- ✓A car returned from valet, service or a shared driveway with signs of access underneath.
If you believe you are being monitored right now
Do not discuss your suspicions inside the room, vehicle or on the device you are worried about, and do not start pulling apart fixtures — removing a device yourself usually destroys the evidence that would matter later. Leave the environment exactly as it is.
Call from a different location, on a device you trust, and describe the situation in general terms. We will tell you plainly whether a professional sweep is the right response.
Know Your Rights — California Recording Law
California is one of the strictest privacy states in the country. It is an all-party consent state — considerably stricter than the one-party rule many people wrongly assume applies, and a frequent point of confusion for companies and individuals who relocate to the Bay Area from elsewhere. Understanding the difference between lawful recording, unlawful interception and hidden surveillance helps you protect your privacy in San Francisco — and preserve evidence if a line has already been crossed.
General information only: This is not legal advice, and Bugged.com is not a law firm. How these rules apply depends heavily on the facts. Speak with a qualified California attorney about your specific situation.
All-Party Consent for Confidential Conversations
California is an all-party consent state. Recording a confidential communication without the consent of everyone involved can carry criminal and civil exposure under the California Invasion of Privacy Act, including Penal Code §632.
Wiretapping & Electronic Interception
Tapping a phone line or intercepting electronic communications you are not a party to may violate California law — including Penal Code §631 — as well as federal wiretap statutes, with serious criminal and civil consequences.
Hidden Cameras in Private Spaces
Concealing a camera to view or record someone in a place where they reasonably expect privacy — a bedroom, bathroom, changing area or short-term rental — is addressed under California's invasion-of-privacy provisions, including Penal Code §647(j).
GPS Tracking of Another Person's Vehicle
California specifically restricts placing an electronic tracking device on a vehicle to determine someone else's location or movement without consent — see Penal Code §637.7 — which is why tracker discovery is one of our most requested LA services.
Constructive Invasion of Privacy
California's Civil Code §1708.8 — strengthened over years of California litigation involving public figures — also reaches the use of devices to capture private images or conversations that could not otherwise be obtained without trespassing.
Civil Remedies for Victims
Beyond criminal exposure, California law provides civil remedies to people whose communications were unlawfully intercepted or recorded. Preserved, well-documented evidence is often what makes those claims viable — which is why how a device is found matters as much as that it was found.
What We Document for San Francisco Clients
We locate unauthorized devices placed without your consent, photograph them in position, record placement, condition and capability, and issue a professional written report that may support civil or criminal proceedings in San Francisco and across California. For legal strategy or admissibility questions, work with qualified counsel — we routinely coordinate directly with attorneys.
Frequently Asked Questions About San Francisco TSCM
Straight answers on cost, timing, confidentiality, startup and VC offices, estates, vehicles and what actually happens during a bug sweep in San Francisco and the Bay Area.
Still have a confidential question?
Speak directly with a certified TSCM specialist about your San Francisco or Bay Area location — no details required until you are comfortable sharing them.