Samenvatting

In the past decades, telecommunications traffic has grown explosively. There has been an enormous expansion of the use of mobile phones. In addition, the way in which these phones are used has changed as well. An ever growing number of mobile phones is connected to the Internet, and a growing share of communications take place through the Internet. As a result, communication gets increasingly fragmented, because of the various ways and channels available for communication. In this article, the authors discuss the possible implications of these developments for the use of the telephone tap as an investigative tool during criminal investigations. Furthermore, the authors examine the ways in which the internet tap can support or replace the use of the telephone tap. Finally, alternative investigation tools are discussed that might compensate the changing results of the telephone tap.