Infrared surveillance for cable subscribers c. 1980

I have noticed a lot of discussion regarding surveillance via computers and cell-phones recently, but versions of this have been available since the late 70s and early 80s. People just did not know about them. You had an infrared remote that fed into a receiver on your TV and/or cable-box, a remote you could order channels, then latter pay-per-view events from your cable-provider. What people didn't realize was, this two-way communication system was also being used on occasion to "read" the infrared signatures of people in the house up to 19 feet away, sometimes even through walls. This was not as sophisticated as voice/gps/and camera surveillance available via cell-phone, computers, blackberries and the like, but it was possible and has been done, usually under warrant, for many, many years. Explaining this to someone 20 years ago ellicited laughter, but now you can see that it was real, simple, and unknown to 99% of the world.

Are there any of you good folks that were aware of or used these methods?

So why not explaining it in more detail ?

I highly doubt it...

Got any reliable sources or links to this particular subject ?

Complete rubbish.
There is nothing in a remotes circuit for this.

Originally posted by BorgHoffen
Complete rubbish.
There is nothing in a remotes circuit for this.

Exactly. IR diode can give you "image" with resolution of ONE pixel. Even if it was used as OP said that very fact makes it completely IRrelevant