While y'all're on a telephone call, y'all might find it useful to record the phone call for a number of reasons. Whether you're on calls with clients, customers or conference calls, recording the call could be useful because y'all can reference it, use it for record-keeping purposes or railroad train your squad on how to ameliorate respond to customers. But one question remains: is it legal to record phone calls?

Yes, you tin can legally record phone calls. While it isn't illegal to record phone calls, it'due south considered a best exercise to let people know the phone call is beingness recorded. Occasionally, phone call recording can be referred to every bit "wiretapping," only that term is more used for phone calls recorded for legal, criminal and government purposes.

With plenty of available apps to assistance you record calls, recording calls is easier than ever before. In this post, we'll go into the details of how different states handle call recording, how to record calls, and tips for recording calls.

Call Recording Laws in the United states of america and Canada

About states in the US accept one-party consent for recording calls. This means, merely one person needs to concur to the call being recorded (which is usually the person who makes the call). Nevertheless, two-party consent is required for eleven states. What this means is that anybody involved in the telephone call must explicitly agree to be recorded. The states that require two-party consent are:

  1. California
  2. Delaware
  3. Florida
  4. Illinois
  5. Maryland
  6. Massachusetts
  7. Montana
  8. Nevada
  9. New Hampshire
  10. Pennsylvania
  11. Washington

Each state has its own laws regarding phone call recordings. Consult an attorney if you need guidance on laws for each state. In full general, if you want to record calls with people located in more than i country, simply play it condom and become the consent of anybody involved.

Depending on the state you're in, one-party or two-party consent is needed. With ane-party consent, only one political party needs to consent to record the call. This ways the person making the call can record as soon every bit they dial out. With 2-party consent, both parties on the call must give consent.

Recording Conversations Between States

Are you lot making a call from Texas (one-party consent) and on a call with someone in Florida (two-party consent)? Generally speaking, laws favor the state where the call originated from. In this case, merely one-party consent is needed because the call is coming from Texas. If the call originated in Florida, two-political party consent would be needed. As we said earlier, it's best to just get consent from all parties when recording phone calls.

Call Recording Laws in Canada

Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Human action (PIPEDA) allows for "all-parties consent" when recording telephone calls. This means anybody on the call needs to consent.

How does all-parties consent work? If you want to tape a call in Canada, you must do the post-obit:

  • Let everyone on the phone call know that you intend to record the call
  • What the telephone call recording will be used for
  • That the call can only be recorded if each person consents

Y'all can learn more about the laws for recording calls in Canada past viewing the Privacy Commissioner's Guidelines for Recording Customer Calls.

Penalty for Violating Recording Laws

If you violate phone call recording laws, you lot could exist charged with a criminal offence, go through a lawsuit or even both. It's possible to be charged with felonies or misdemeanors as well. Many states have strict laws that could accept you facing jail time if you're found to be in violation of the law.

Work with attorneys to brand sure you're following federal and state consent laws. For example, if your business needs to record calls on a daily basis for customer service, attorneys tin can help yous navigate the laws to make sure you're compliant.

Tips for Recording Calls

Recording calls is easier than ever before. While information technology's easy to just click a button and record, there are some things yous should continue in mind when recording. Here are some tips to help yous record phone calls:

Let all parties know the call is being recorded

It'south best to let everyone on the call know information technology's existence recorded. This way, anyone who objects to the call beingness recorded can clearly voice why they don't desire to be recorded. If they don't desire the call to exist recorded, you lot can allow them know what the phone call recording is being used to help convince them that the recording is legal.

Not sure how to let people know they're being recorded? Here are a few samples you lot can utilize to let people know the call is existence recorded or to ask for their permission:

  • "This call is being recorded for training and quality assurance purposes."
  • "Do you mind if we record this call then we can use it for training purposes?"
  • "Is it ok if nosotros record this call? We can send you the audio file after the call is over besides."
  • "We'd like to record this call for full general recording keeping purposes. Is that ok with you?"

Let people know how the call recording is going to be used

Accept you ever called a company's client service line and received an automated disclaimer about how the call recording will be used for training and quality assurance purposes? Companies do this because it clearly tells their customers why the telephone call needs to exist recorded and won't be used for nefarious purposes. Letting customers know why their telephone call is being recorded can convalesce concerns they might take.

Don't lie nigh recording

Even with ane-party consent, you lot can however exist charged for recording someone without them knowing about it. If you have reasons to hibernate that you're recording the call, you lot should work with an attorney to discuss other ways of recording.

Speak clearly

Ane do good to call recordings is being able to hear what was said. That'south why everyone on the call should speak clearly. If in that location are sound issues, let the speaker know so they can meliorate improve their speaking for the recording.

Don't eat

The call recording catches everything – including people eating. If you're on a phone call, make sure no 1 is eating because it can be picked up the recording and potentially ruin some parts of the phone call. If someone is speaking while someone else is eating, yous could miss out on valuable information in the recording.

Make sure people are identified

At some point during the call, everyone involved should identify themselves with their name. They don't accept to state their full name, but getting their showtime name makes it helpful when transcribing the call.

Make utilize of muting

There's a lot of background noise on calls. When the telephone call begins, let anybody know they should mute themselves to help reduce groundwork noise. One time information technology'southward time for them to speak, they tin unmute and begin speaking.

Which Phone Calls Should Exist Recorded?

It might be tempting to record every single call, but non every telephone phone call needs to be recorded. Here are some recommended call types to tape.

Recording meetings with clients

Recording your client meetings is a great way to runway your projects and concur people accountable for deadlines and updates. With customer call recordings, you can employ them to make project updates or share them with your teammates who weren't able to join the coming together.

Recording briefing calls

With many people involved in conference calls, a recording of the call is benign because you tin can transcribe them to share with your team or others. For example, Fortune 500 companies give quarterly updates via conference calls to investors and government agencies, which are so transcribed and made publically available.

Recording interviews

Journalists utilise call recordings all the time when interviewing people. This allows them to review what was said on the call, bank check quotes, and have the call transcribed then they can plow it into written content. This also protects them from libel laws. Without call recordings, journalists could exist sued for misquoting the interviewee. By providing proof of what the interviewee said, journalists remained protected.

Recording customer service calls

Recordings of calls with customers tin can help your team provide ameliorate support and learn how to better piece of work with customers. You can use recordings of customer calls during team training sessions to permit your team know how to appropriately respond to customers.

Recording sales calls

Just like customer service calls, sales calls can exist recorded to help improve your sales team. You lot can use these recordings to teach your team how to better improve their calls, or use their call recordings as examples of what a good sales call looks like.

Recording customer interviews/discovery calls

Equally your business organization starts getting more customers, you lot'll want to know what's working and what can be improved for your current and hereafter customers. By recording calls with your current customers, y'all can utilise these as an opportunity to acquire where you can improve the customer feel.

How to Record Phone Calls

Need an easy way to record phone calls? Start recording phone calls with just one click with the OpenPhone web app.

Recording a phone call in the OpenPhone app
Record a phone call in OpenPhone
  • Record your calls with the touch of the "recording" push in the web app dialler
  • Start and end recording any time, as many times as you need, during the telephone call. This way, you can tape the entire phone call or just a snippet or two.
  • All recorded sound will be available on the chat screen right after yous finish recording. Go back and listen whenever.
  • Download the call recording(s) right to your computer.
  • If y'all accept a shared phone number for your team, call recordings will exist available to everyone with access to that number.

Get started with a free trial of OpenPhone today.