Implied permission for recording phone calls.

mayoman1973

When you call a company and get the "calls may be recorded message" you are giving permission to have the conversation recorded simply by staying on the line and not requesting it to be not recorded. However does this also work in reverse. When the company's message says "Conversation may be recorded" are they also giving implied permission for you to record the conversation without you having to ask for explicit permission. ie you can then share the conversation with whoever you see fit. With no permission from the other party you are still allowed record, you just cant share with 3rd party.

Victor

Recording a call without the permission of at least one party is an offence. Consequently, recording your own calls isn't an offence.

Separately, there are the matters of data protection and privacy. If the data is about you, you sharing it shouldn't be a problem. If the data is about someone else, there may be an issue.

There is an argument that the person you are talking to has a right to privacy about their voice and speech. One way around this might be to record the call, transcribe it and delete the recording.

If this is a contentious matter, taking legal advice would be prudent.

cruizer101

It always struck me as a bit odd how they word it "Calls may be recorded" is a bit ambiguous with 2 possible meanings.
There is a possibility calls will be recorded.
You have our permission to record calls.

From their own point of view I don't know why they aren't clearer
We may record calls for training....

mayoman1973

It is my understanding that the words "calls May be recorded" in this context always means "calls are allowed to be recorded" and in almost all circumstances ARE recorded. Not that calls "might be" recorded if we feel like it. But my issue is with implied permission from a third party for something if they are asking for your permission to do the same thing

seamus

cruizer101 wrote: »

It always struck me as a bit odd how they word it "Calls may be recorded" is a bit ambiguous with 2 possible meanings.
There is a possibility calls will be recorded.
You have our permission to record calls.

From their own point of view I don't know why they aren't clearer
We may record calls for training....

It's standard boilerplate stuff tbh.

There was a time where the cost of recording a call and storing that recording was quite high. So "for training purposes" companies would record calls at random, or sometimes it was possible for a supervisor to start recording a call if they felt it was necessary. Difficult calls make good examples for a training course.

But not every call was recorded, that was economically unfeasible. So "calls may be recorded" was the get-out clause.

Nowadays typically every call is recorded.

Whether any kind of disclaimer is legally necessary in Ireland, I don't think so. Though given that the company is technically a 3rd party to the call, it's probably a good idea to include it anyway. But I expect it was just inherited as standard practice from the US and was never adopted because a solicitor told them to.

Most likely a certain amount of the "observer effect" also comes into play where a customer is more likely to behave themselves if they're aware that the call is not private between them and the other person.

The Specialist

mayoman1973 wrote: »

It is my understanding that the words "calls May be recorded" in this context always means "calls are allowed to be recorded" and in almost all circumstances ARE recorded. Not that calls "might be" recorded if we feel like it. But my issue is with implied permission from a third party for something if they are asking for your permission to do the same thing

Well you are contacting them, so by continuing to queue to speak to someone, you are consenting to recording. If you don't consent then hang up. The message doesn't imply any permission to the caller to record the conversation.

Peregrinus

The Specialist wrote: »

Well you are contacting them, so by continuing to queue to speak to someone, you are consenting to recording. If you don't consent then hang up. The message doesn't imply any permission to the caller to record the conversation.

As others have pointed out, the caller doesn't require any permission to record the call. He's a party to the call, and you only need the consent of one party to record the call. He can give the necessary consent himself.

However, by recording the call, depending on the information captured, the caller become a "data controller". He's not necessarily free to use the information he has captured however he likes. He needs to find out what his obligations in this regard are. Hence Victor's sound advice to take legal advice before actually doing anything with the recording.