Phone log

A phone log is metadata collected from telephone or mobile phones for the purpose of surveillance or espionage. This metadata may include: length of calls, phone numbers of both parties, phone-specific identification information, gps location, call proximity, and/or computer converted voice-to-text transcripts of the phone call conversation. The advantage of converting audio to ASCII text metadata is that it makes it easily searchable for keywords and phrases, and is easily storable for long periods of time on conventional database systems for years. Phone logs are not limited to governmental collection. For example, some private sector companies, such as banks, are known to collect phone log data on their internal phone network of all calls within and between the company and outside parties.