General guidance concerning the issues surrounding the
recording of telephone calls
"Your call may be recorded
for training and quality control purposes…." Words familiar
to any of us who have telephoned a call centre in recent
years. But, when time is money, why are our banks and
electricity suppliers so keen to share this fact with us?
The advent of affordable call
recording technology has undoubtedly made the routine
recording and storage of telephone calls a viable
proposition for many more businesses. The advantages are
obvious – a record of what was said to whom and when, the
ability to monitor staff etc. However, the downside is that
for any business wishing to stay on the right side of the
law there is a raft of legislation to be complied with.
- In the UK, there are
four main sources of regulation:
- The Data Protection Act
1998;
- The Regulation of
Investigatory Powers Act 2000;
- The Telecommunications
(Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of
Communications) Regulations 2000; and
- The Human Rights Act
1998.
Not all of this legislation
was enacted specifically to deal with the recording of
telephone calls. The Data Protection Act for example, makes
it a criminal offence for any business which holds personal
information about the living (which could be something as
simple as a list of the names and addresses of employees) to
have failed to register with the Information Commission, the
body responsible for enforcing Data Protection and Freedom
of Information regulation in the UK.
Other legislation is
specifically targeted at the recording of telephone calls.
Whilst readers are unlikely to find themselves in the
situation that Sir Ian Blair, the commissioner of the
Metropolitan Police did in March last year, when he came
under fire for having recorded calls with the Attorney
General about counter terrorism without telling him first
(arguably a breach of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers
Act) readers should prepare themselves for dealing with the
irate customer who, in response to a recording being
produced proving their complaint wrong, decides to argue
that the recording should never have been made in the first
place.
Whilst a detailed discussion
of how this legislation applies to every different type of
business recording calls is beyond the scope of this
article, readers should always remember that the overriding
purpose of much of the legislation is to ensure transparency
and fairness. With callers, this includes taking "all
reasonable measures" to inform them that their calls will be
recorded. Many businesses take the decision that the best
way to comply with this requirement is to play a recorded
message before allowing callers to converse with a human
being. However, it should be noted that this itself is not
an explicit legal requirement under the legislation and so,
for businesses able to demonstrate a legitimate reason for
not using an automated message (for example, where it is
important for callers to be connected to an operator as
quickly as possible) there may be other options available to
ensure compliance with the "reasonable measures" requirement
which do not involve playing the ubiquitous announcement
referred to at the start of this article.
Chris Berry
Business Development
Liquid Voice
Paul Jinks
Senior Technology law Specialist
International Law Firm - Hammonds
This article
is intended to provide general guidance concerning the
issues surrounding the recording of telephone calls and
should not be interpreted as legal advice with application
to a specific set of facts.
Find out more...
Why record your telephone calls?
How
will call recording help my Customers service?
General guidance concerning the issues surrounding the
recording of telephone calls
Click here for >> FSA press release regarding call
recording
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