Underhand Tactics: The Real Price Of Your Mobile Phone
Awarded best investigation at DIG Awards 2015

A mobile phone is sold every 57 seconds meaning that there are now more mobile phones on the planet than toothbrushes. We investigated the shameful secrets of the multinationals who produce our mobile phones. They are the big winners of the mobile revolution as their profits explode but what is the human and environmental cost in the production countries of China and Congo?

We bring exclusive footage from inside Chinese factories where scores of children are working long hours under arduous conditions. The multinationals claim they are doing all they can, but these shocking images say otherwise. In Africa the mines that retrieve minerals essential to components in our smartphones are dangerous and unregulated. Injuries and deaths occur regularly amongst workers just desperate to support their families. Whilst in China the environmental damage has scarred the landscape, emptied a village and possibly caused severe illness among the population.

We confront the major names in the smartphone industry – Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Sony – with the realities that they would like to keep hidden.