Microsoft has been granted a patent for technology that acts as a wiretap of sorts for Internet communication, allowing governments or other law-enforcement authorities to record the data without detection.

Dubbed "Legal Intercept," using the technology means "data associated with a request to establish a communication is modified to cause the communication to be established via a path that includes a recording agent" that silently records the data, according to a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.