The Telecommunications Monitoring Office is the Foundation department in charge of a widespread surveillance programme, most notably of emergency services calls across the globe.
Other departments cover the Internet and most broadcast media: the TMO's remit is limited to person-to-person communication media, mostly the telephone. This still leaves plenty of data to sift though, even after filtering is done by algorithms (ESAS - Emergency Services Anomaly Screening) to try and spot calls that might be describing anomalous phenomena; the TMO's single most common activity is simply listening to calls to try and work out if anything anomalous is going on. Most often, it isn't.
The TMO does also intervene as well as surveil, when it's placed to do so: operatives sometimes intervene on phone calls to help members of the public encountering an anomaly, and even can dispatch agents where appropriate. But they don't directly contain or research anything; that's all the responsibility of other departments.
As such, while it's a critical part of Foundation infrastructure, and is the method by which a significant percentage of anomalies are first discovered, it's not generally considered a prestigious department to be assigned to. Much of its workforce is comprised of Level 1 clearance operatives, who spend their days listening in on calls, over and over.
A tale series following the career and life of Sofia Muñoz, a young woman from Bogotá whose life gets a lot stranger once she starts working at one of the Telecommunications Monitoring Office's call centers.
The TMO has offices the world over, from tiny outposts in third world countries to bustling sites devoted entirely to monitoring emergency calls. Who knows what endless stories can be told about these locations and the employees that inhabit them?
The TMO doesn't directly contain or research anything by itself. But sometimes it is heavily involved in the discovery and initial investigation of an SCP…
From in-universe "motivational" posters to logos to fanart, the TMO provides boundless opportunities for artists to exercise their creative muscles.
The Telecommunications Monitoring Office has a lot of Low-Clearance personnel who need to be introduced to the basics - or at least, as much as they're allowed to know of the basics - of what the Foundation is. These videos aim to do just that.
Like any good department, the TMO has its own theme, for use on any TMO-related page. You can find it on its dedicated theme page, or just copy-paste the below code to the start of your article. (
BattleblockB0ss)
[[include :scp-wiki:theme:black-highlighter-theme]]
[[include :scp-wiki:theme:telecommunications-monitoring-office-theme]]
There is no canon, of course. And the TMO itself is not a canon, so you can decide it works however you need it to.
But since we (
Meserach, BattleblockB0ss, and 
Agente Shuffle) created it, we do have some ideas about it that, while they haven't made it into articles or tales yet, might be of interest to you.
- The TMO is global in scope. While Site-14 is the main Western HQ, there's at least one more headquarters out there and probably dozens of satellite offices across the globe (including the one in Bogotá, Colombia that Sofia Muñoz works at). In particular, they need to cover the world's larger language groups. Multilingual operatives are preferred wherever possible, and offices are sited wherever possible to take advantage of high numbers of multilingual people. Nevertheless, it also makes sense for the monitoring of calls in, e.g Mandarin Chinese to be largely operating out of China.
- The TMO isn't prestigious but it does employ a large number of people, especially at low clearance: it's a high volume business listening to all these calls. Exactly how big it is is up to you, but i imagine each office is at least a hundred people.
- The ESAS algorithm does screen out the majority of emergency calls, but it does err on the side of being oversensitive, especially for anomalous phenomena that could be very dangerous, very visible, or spread very quickly left unchecked (this is why it seems particularly oversensitive to Fifthist things). It's also just not that intelligent in general, because that's funnier and makes for a more mundane working environment where most of your calls are routine.
- The bulk of TMO employees have no idea how big the Foundation is or how much it is dealing with. Clearances are low and things are disclosed only in a need to know basis. Many have probably never seen even a single SCP document.
- It would be extremely rare for any TMO site to actually contain anything directly. I imagine nearly all are classed as "Protected" sites.
- Most TMO employees have very ordinary lives outside of work. Being an operative pays well compared to most call centre jobs, but it isn't going to make you rich or anything.
This is largely cribbing from and synthesising Call Me and the Site-14 dossier. We might build it out more if more TMO stuff gets written.
1876: Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone. I mean, it's more complicated than that, but broadly speaking.
December, 1939: As part of operations connected to World War II (and the simultaneous Occult War), the Foundation embarks on the Eta-18 programme of telecommunications surveillance, the first documented indication of the Foundation engaging in such an activity in a systematic way. Eta-18 engages in only targeted surveillance guided by other intelligence and specific strategic goals, but continues as a Foundation programme beyond the war.
1960s: The continuous growth of the telephone as a communication medium globally, combined with the experience of the Eta-18 programme and the adoption of centralised emergency service telephone response, spurs the Foundation to consider and develop a more widespread and ubiquitous programme of telecommunications surveillance.
April, 1967: The TMO is formally founded, along with Site-14, under Department Head Stanley Le. The scope and scale of TMO surveillance ramps up over the next two decades.
1977: The introduction of pre-screening algorithms vastly expands the scope of practical TMO surveillance.
circa 1980: The "golden age" of the TMO. New Department Head Morgan Phaserfield is in charge during the peak of the TMO's prestige, influence, and manpower.
1990s: A "dark age", as things start to go wrong for the TMO.
1992: A new department is inaugurated to cover the anomalous surveillance of the Internet. The TMO's bid for this portfolio is unsuccessful.
1996-1997: Cost cutting measures are implemented, reducing 'redundant' false-negative checks. The lack of these checks is then cited as a factor in a major containment breach, leading to further scrutiny of the TMO.
1997-2005: The TMO at its lowest point, with continuous changes in management.
2005: TMO involvement in Protocol Ophiuchus and the containment of SCP-1425 lead to an increase in TMO budget and restore some prestige.
roughly early 2020s: The Sofia Muñoz tales take place.
So here's some of the themes the TMO is good for tackling within the Foundation universe:
Low-Clearance, Low-Seniority: The TMO stemmed out of a desire to write about what it's like to work for the Foundation at the lowest levels. That's not to say TMO stories can't depict or involve more senior personnel, but that's not the heart of what it's for.
Just A Job: In keeping with the above, the TMO is a great way to show a Foundation job that feels like a job: concrete, mundane, boring, filled with small human moments and a trace of the absurd.
Not Knowing: Low clearance often means not getting to know about why things are happening. This is a good engine for both horror and comedy. Additionally, telephones mean hearing things but not seeing them: consider how this partial perception of events might be useful to your story.
Connection and Disconnection: Telephones are a way to talk to other people, but they're also a poor substitute for real human interaction. Hence, they're a useful metaphor for both being social and not being social.
The Sad-Sack Department: Telephones aren't glamorous any more, and the TMO is also a department that's a little stuck in the past. The Internet is handled by other departments, so the TMO can feel like a relic, and isn't viewed in-universe as a prestigious assignment. Hence, it's a good place for stories about a Foundation that isn't as super-powerful, competent or well-resourced as it might otherwise be. This works well for underdog narratives, slice-of-life realism, and comedy.
