The Law Reform Commission report lists a variety of devices once seen only in spy movies, but now generally available, which threaten personal privacy. These include:
parabolic microphones with ranges extending to more than 250 metres;
miniature tape recorders which can be concealed inside cigarette packets;
listening devices laminated on to business cards;
briefcase cameras activated by a button on the briefcase;
residual light image intensifiers with ranges of up to 10 kilometres for long-range observation at night;
sub-miniature transmitters, smaller than sugar cubes, which can record conversations from a distance of 10 metres and transmit them at high quality up to 150 metres;
listening devices which through the use of laser beams can monitor and record conversations from positions outside the room in which they are occurring;
optical devices which permit continuous monitoring in complete darkness;
computerised face recognition technology enabling the matching of an image on a screen with a file on a database.