The article presented below does not constitute legal advice and should not be interpreted as such. Whilst ever effort is made to keep this page and others up to date we cannot guarantee the validity of this page in terms of the most current legistation.
It is essential that you obtain your own legal advice on these requirements and implement all such internal rules and processes, and have in place all such pre-recorded notifications, and publicity and explanatory material, as are required to ensure full compliance.
If your call recordings will or may be shared with a third party at any time then you are required by law to inform anyone you either call or who calls you.
In the UK you are not required by law to inform the other party that a call is being recorded assuming that the recordings and associated data are used solely for: Training and Quality, Meeting Regulatory Requirements, Maintaining Evidence of Business Transactions, Prevention or Detection of Crime or Fraud provided you can be certain that the recordings collected will not be shared with any third party.
Even when you are not legally required to inform someone about call recording it is considered best practice to do so, and if the recordings or information will be used for any other purposes (including marketing) then you must inform people. With our service it is easy to play a message to callers with a warning message.
This information is UK specific. If you operate your Voxhub service from multiple countries you will need to research the answer to this question based on those locations rules and regulations governing call recording.
It is not legal to intercept communications which are not yours, or to record calls for commercial gain, ie to sell the call content or place it in the public domain without the explicit prior permission of the parties concerned.
If you are concerned about this issue we recommend you get legal advice for your specific operating environment.
In the UK there are a number of very strict legal rules governing;(a) the circ*mstances in which it is permissible to record calls,
(b) the purposes for which such a recording may be made,
(c) the length of time recorded material may be retained,
(d) most importantly of all, the need for pre notifications to those taking part in the call, and
(e) the manner in which such notification must be given.
This document provides an overview of the laws which require certain obligations to have been met before telephone calls can lawfully recorded. The requirements of all relevant legislation must be complied with. It is not possible to provide comprehensive detail of that legislation here. Any person considering interception, recording or monitoring of telephone calls is strongly advised to seek their own independent legal advise and should not seek to rely solely on the general information provided below. It should be borne in mind that criminal proceedings and civil actions may occur when the relevant legislation is not complied with. Accordingly, we accept no liability for reliance by any person on the following information or for any omission of information.
The interception, recording and monitoring or telephone calls is governed by a number of different pieces of UK legislation. The requirements of all of the relevant legislation must be complied with. The main articles of legislation are:
- Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 ("RIPA")
- Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice)(Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000 ("LBP Regulations")
- Data Protection Act 1998
- The Employment Practices, Data Protection Code
- Telecommunications (Data Protection and Privacy) Regulations 1999
- Human Rights Act
Below you will find summarised the key areas of each law but again this information should not be relied upon as your guide to your compliance.
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 ("RIPA")
Call recording is only lawfully carried out if one of the following applies:
(i) The person recording the call has reasonable grounds for believing that it has the consent of both the caller and the intended recipient of the call to record; or
(ii) The recording is carried out by a business in compliance with the Lawful Business Practice Regulations.
Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000 ("LBP Regulations")
Generally calls can be recorded for the following reasons:
- to provide evidence of a business transaction
- to ensure that a business complies with regulatory procedures
- to see that quality standards or targets are being met in the interests of national security
- to prevent or detect crime to investigate the unauthorised use of a telecom system
- to secure the effective operation of the telecom system
Data Protection Act 1998 ("DPA")
Recording (and use of recordings) where a Company would be able to establish the identity of either party to the call, either directly from the recording or from other information which it is conceivable that the Company could obtain, would require you to first:
(i) Have informed that party how the recording would be used;
(ii) Obtain consent for the recording to take place (This may be implied from the fact that the customer has been notified and not objected, but you should obtain explicit consent if the call reveals any information classified as sensitive by the DPA, ie details of race/ethnic background, political opinion, religion, trade union membership, physical/mental health, sexual life, offences committed or legal proceeding bought.)
(iii) The obligations in relation to processing of that data also apply, so that the data mst be kept for longer than necessary, under secure conditions and ust be accessible to the customer at their request.
The Employment Practices, Data Protection Code
This regulates employer/employee relations and so is more relevant to the monitoring of calls from your staff's point of view. The code states that employees should be informed about any monitoring of their calls and that their consent should be obtained (as required under the DPA.) The code does provide exemptions from this obligation, for instance where monitoring is necessary to investigate criminal activity, but with provisos, for instance specific examples of criminal activity should have been identified before monitoring begins.
Human Rights Act 1998
The Act provides that "everyone has the right to respect for his private life and family life, his home and his correspondence". Legal cases involving the monitoring of phone calls have recommenced that to ensure that this right is protected. Employees whose calls are monitored should be given access to a private line over which personal calls can then be made, during their lunch break for example.
Telecoms License obligations - The Service Provision License
Private and business use of a telephone system is regulated by certain DTI licenses. These include a similar requirement to that set by the Regulations that "every reasonable effort" to inform parties to a telephone conversation that recording may take place should be made.
In Conclusion
A common theme throughout the above pieces of law is the requirement to inform all parties to a monitored or recorded call in advance that their conversation will be recorded. This requirement applies in respect of a Company's staff just as much as it does in respect of their customers.
It enables you to record calls but the obligation to inform customers that the calls are being recorded is not overridden.
The regulations require that all reasonable efforts to inform participants to a call be made.
Mentioning the fact that your calls will be monitored or recorded in customer documentation or adverts is the absolute minimum step which you should take to comply with the Regulations' prior information requirement.
Ideally at the beginning of a monitored or recorded call customers should also be:
- informed that recording will be taking place (as required by the Regulations and the DPA);
- informed as to the purpose of the recording, how it will be used, eg for training and monitoring purposes (as required by the Regulations and the DPA); and
- asked to consent to this (as required by the DPA.)
The requirement to obtain consent should always be observed where sensitive data (as defined by the DPA) is obtained from the individual concerned.
Where recording or monitoring takes place in the course of business (as opposed to detect a crime) staff should be notified which phone lines and/or types of calls will be monitored and should be asked to consent to this happening.
