"Hello, you have called the swine flu hotline. Due to the very heavy volume of calls all of our operators are currently busy. Please hold, or please ring back later, when you will probably be feeling a lot better anyway."

The Information commissioner is currently looking into allegations that a popular messaging service pretended that it was using state of the art technology when in actual fact it was using little men and women in a call centre in Mumbai.

The service transcribes voice messages providing the user with text version of the message and has become an invaluable business tool over recent years. However, the information commissioner is looking into allegations that instead of a machine performing the transcription, user details have been sent to third party call centres that performed the transcriptions. Apparently the transcripts in question were of very poor quality with words mis-spelt and names indecipherable.

The story came to light when a leading Sunday newspaper recently bugged a very senior political figure and published the correct transcript of the mobile phone message in its pages. It transpires that the same 'public figure' had previously received an inaccurate version of the message produced by the messaging service in question.

So what were the two versions of the same message that caused the controversy?

The correct newspaper version read: "Hi Gordon, I saw your idiotic YouTube recording where you wanted to be 'hip'. You know what I think? YouTube if you want to, but there is nowt like knocking on doors."

The incorrect voice messaging transcript read: "Hi Gorgeous, I saw your erotic YouTube recording and I want to see you strip. You know what I think? YouTube all you want to, and I'll tout my knockers and drawers."

A spokesman for 'Gordon' said that had he heard only the newspaper transcript in the first place, he would have sacked the lady in question immediately. But unfortunately he relied on the dodgy voice messaging transcript and thought that he'd give the 'lady' the benefit of the doubt.

"Hello caller, this is the government swine flu hotline. Please press one for hypochondria, two for blind panic, three for a 'bit of a sniffle' and four for 'it might just be a bad hangover, but it has the all the hallmarks of swine flu..."