Last updated April 12, 2019
A new free website that has been launched by SpyDialer.com in the United States is allowing users to spy on the outgoing voicemails of new and old cell phones in order to learn who the phone user is. The website, which was the creation of a private investigator based in Los Angeles, has sparked worries about its use, though creator Robert Scott fails to see the issue.
“It’s a tool to protect the privacy of someone who wants to know who a cell phone number belongs to without having to speak to someone they may not want to,” Scott says. “For example, a parent may see some texts they don’t like on their teenager’s phone. Spy Dialer lets them anonymously listen to the outgoing voicemail of the phone number to hear whose phone it is.”
The site apparently uses direct-to-voicemail technology, and then captures and plays the first ten seconds of the outbound voicemail message of the phone number. However, people on Twitter and various other social networking sites have begun expressing concern over the technology, suggesting that it is bordering on creepy. “Today Show” host Matt Lauer would seem to agree, commenting on a recent edition when a safe-dating expert cited the site as a way for women to check their dates out in advance that “Now you’re starting to creep me out a little bit!”