My child is in Thailand instead of finishing college here in America. I was looking at phone surveillance and one of the services being offered by the mobile phone surveillance company is recording of phone calls and ambient recordings, i.e. one can open the microphone and listen to the surroundings. Does anyone know if it is illegal to do so in Thailand? When I gave the phone to my son I did tell him that I have the ability to check up on him and he assured me that it is okay with him. Still I do not wish to violate any Thai rules. Any comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

In most jurisdictions there is usually no restrictions of "monitoring or recording " of phone conversations so long as both parties consent.

I don't see any reason why Thai law would effect you anyway if your doing the monitoring from the USA. Then US State law would apply. Some states are one party consent states and others are two party consent states but it really comes down with what exactly are you going to do with this information

My personal opinion is that if you think you can control your child by monitoring their phone conversations they should not be in Thailand finishing their education but be in the US where you can keep an eye as well as an ear on them

My view is, legal or not, you are feeding your own paranoia.

To give you an idea how that might work:

I love radio plays, far prefer them to TV - what I love about radio plays is the image I see while I am listening is all of my own making, the dialogue and sounds from the radio triggering my own imagination.

If you feel you want to do that to yourself with a soundtrack from your child when s/he's out of the house then I doubt you've thought this out.

If on the other hand it's not the son's phone (I hypothesise) and it's really that of a wife/girlfriend, then I commend to you Grahame Green's 'End of the Affair'.

Either way, snooping, not good for you, not good for the victim of your snooping, whoever they are.

After your son tells his friends that you are a stalker, he will factory reset the phone.

Bye bye stalking software.

Why do you want to monitor his phone conversations ?