You may be wondering how well VoIP calls are protected from surveillance by government agents and others. We’ll give it to you straight:
The bad news is that no communication method is perfect. No matter what you do, there’s always a chance that your messages will be intercepted or overheard. Privacy is an always-escalating battle between those who want to maintain secrets and those who want to know them, and the average person simply won’t be able to win at this game.
The good news, however, is that VoIP tends to perform better than traditional landline communications for security purposes. That is, if you’re concerned about privacy, you’re more likely to get it using VoIP than you are with traditional telephony.
Why is VoIP more secure?
Traditional voice signals that travel over phone lines are analog signals, and are unencrypted. VoIP signals, on the other hand, are encrypted data packets. The parties on either end of the call can decrypt the packets easily. That’s how the conversation can take place. Others who want to snoop on your calls, however, would need to “crack” the encryption or use another method in order to listen in. In addition, if you’re using VoIP on your mobile through a non Wi-Fi connection, your global IP may create another layer of anonymity for you.
So there you have it. VoIP has a few built-in security advantages that may enhance the privacy of your calls, depending on whom you’re trying to hide from. Of course, nothing beats clandestine meetings out in open spaces where “bugs” can’t be placed, but this method of operations tends to make it a little hard to run a business, so we generally don’t recommend it.