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Comment by modeless | Hacker News Reader

Apparently all that's required to make recording a phone call legal is to play a 3 second recorded message saying "This call may be recorded for quality and training purposes" because that's what every corporation does. They don't ask, or verify consent. Why can't I do that on my phone? I will happily have my phone say "This call may be recorded" before every call I pick up, so that every call can be recorded.

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Fun times, try telling those same corporations that you're recording the call. I've yet to have any proceed other than (politely, but promptly) disconnecting the call.

Check your local laws. In some places, if either party announces the call can be recorded than either party may record it. Ie if the Corp says the call is being recorded, you can record as well without being required to say anything. It is already assumed the call is being record.

Honestly I always take "This call may be recorded" as two way consent :) one time someone was referring to person with hard to pronounce name and I said "that's fine I will play it back". Person responded: "wait, are you recording? I didn't give you my consent". To which I said yes you did, when I called your line answered with announcement that this call can be recorded. He wasn't too happy :)

There are 2 different ambiguities there:

1. Ambiguous may, which could refer to permission or to possibility

2. Doesn't specify which party is permitted to do the recording/might be doing the recording

Makes me wonder why that phraseology is so widespread. Why not use We might record this call?

It's a bit tricky, since "this call may be recorded" often is played only to you before connecting to the other person, so technically this announcement was not made to them.

Their line helpfully tells you in advance "this call may be recorded." Great! Looks like permission to me! Record I shall! If they object to the call's being recorded, they ought to take that up with whomever controls their phone lines.

If you're calling a corporation (or they called you) then it's the corporation that's the legal entity being recorded... Not the person on the other end of the phone.

People have separate rights even if they are employees, and wiretapping laws apply to recording people - like, the company recording their own calls can easily be a violation of wiretapping laws if they don't properly inform their employees.

Huh. I’ve bluffed that once when I was getting bad service because I thought it would get the agent to pay more attention. Can’t say it had the intended effect, but they did not hang up. I just got a “yessir”.

(In case anyone is reading this, I push my calls through Telnyx, have inbound/outbound recording on, and just caught PayPal removing the 2FA from my account, after I begged them not to, and then stalling me on the phone and transferring me to a manager after their call centers closed.

Gonna be a fun call with PayPal tomorrow!)

Why would you need to tell them that you're recording the call? They already know that the call may be recorded.

Not necessarily. Imagine the following: my company doesn't record calls, but we say that we "may" record calls because we think it will convince callers to behave. My employees know that their call is not being recorded, and getting one party to consent to something we don't actually want to do is business as usual.

If this took place in a two-party consent state then your consent alone is not enough, you'd also need the caller's consent which my company doesn't have. If you were to record the call without letting the employee know beforehand, that recording would be illegal.

But the company has said that the call may be recorded.

You ask them if the phone call is recorder. They say Yes. You, in a surprised voice, ask if they are ok with that? Done.

The idea is that if you don't consent you hang up after hearing the message.

Funnily, the phrasing "may be recorded" is not interpreted by the corporations as "the customer may be recording as well" and in many cases their default policy is to not talk to you if you've declared you're recording. Single-party consent jurisdictions make it even more muddy.

My car insurance company actually refused to talk to me when I called them after my accident, knowing their phone line would tell me the call may be recorded, and therefore I would record it. They would only talk to me if they called me, so I started answering with, "This call may be recorded. By continuing, you acknowledge your consent." Most of the time, they just hung up.

They were trying to screw me, and the state insurance commissioner finally had to step in and put them in their place. The person who caused the accident had the same carrier I did, and since they knew they were on the hook for the charges either way, they made no effort at all to adjudicate fault. They wanted to split it 50-50, and I wasn't having it.

> Single-party consent jurisdictions make it even more muddy

Don't they simplify it? You're on the call. If you consent to recording, you've given your single-party consent. You don't need to tell the company you're calling you're recording.

You don't but if you do they'll hang up. The whole "the call may be recorded, but only by us" is rather idiotic still.

Just say it while you are on hold. They don't make any effort to ensure you hear their notification, so why should you make any effort to ensure that they hear yours?

> Just say it while you are on hold. They don't make any effort to ensure you hear their notification, so why should you make any effort to ensure that they hear yours?

This is possibly worse than staying silent, given you're betraying bad intent.

Yep. Them saying it may be recorded for quality purposes should be enough, your complaint using the recording is to improve the quality of service you receive.

>Funnily, the phrasing "may be recorded" is not interpreted by the corporations as "the customer may be recording as well"

IANAL but AFAIK the "this call is recorded ..." warning that they automatically play gives license for both sides to record, even in a 2 party consent state.

Still they'll hang up if you announce your recording explicitly, go ahead and try that on your cell provider, ISP or bank.

If they announce it then you don't have to.

The point is more the attitude of "Fine for me but not for thee", with the corporation in question almost undoubtedly recording the call, but balking when a consumer dares do the same

I love how they dress it up as "may be recorded", as if whenever you hear that message there's a small chance the recording isn't sitting in some S3 bucket.

If they do something wrong, it might not be recorded.

Without the “may” the individual may feel they can request THE recording and if the company does not provide it then that make a big stink of it.

Always felt that was dubiously legal in places that require consent to record.

Always be in the habit of saying “me too” to the robot that plays that message. Then it’s not even deceptive, you clearly stated to the other “party” that you are recording. Not your problem if the other end wasn’t listening because they made you talk to a poorly built robot.

In which jurisdictions--if any--does that actually matter?

AFAIK there is no state where anti-recording rules are asymmetric between participants. Either both have an expectation of non-recording, or neither do.

This reminds me of an old idea I called Reverse MFA where the person you're talking to over the phone must provide a valid 6 digit number before you give out personal details like birthday, SSN, etc.

Pshaw, next thing you'll be saying companies have to be liable when criminals fool their employees rather than pushing all the consequences onto innocent customers under the phrase "identity theft." :p

sort of related, I wish phones generally allowed extensions.

In other words, phone number plus a 6-digit extension, otherwise voicemail.

Sort of like your code, but allowing a person to talk to you in the first place.

Not exactly the same, but wouldn't it be possible using a VOIP service like Google Fi to have/generate a large number of phone numbers? Give each contact their unique number, so if you ever get spam called you can detect where your number leaked from.

(If it isn't directly possible, I'm fairly sure using some sort of iot telephony servive would help getting hundreds of legitimate numbers. Now only to build a cell interceptor to funnel them all to one phone!)

I don't think Google Fi is a VoIP service? At least, not any more one than any other cellular provider in these days where "WiFi Calling" is widespread.

Last I knew, they used T-Mobile for their cellular connection.

this is technically possible at the phone level, but all the business infrastructure enforces ten digit validation.

it's a wish, probably a fantasy.

but it could be like letting smart people organize their life using email addresses in a similar way: foo+extra@gmail.com

If you live in a state that only requires single-party consent you can record at will your own conversations without disclosure.

Google Voice can record calls if you press 4. A voice comes on and says so.

Only a couple times have I used it on purpose, but it has triggered on me accidentally a handful of times over the years, usually in weird situations like in my car (older cars, with Bluetooth-only car phone systems). Makes everybody nervous, myself included.

When you do get a live person, you can say that you do not consent to be recorded. When I’ve done this the person on the other end claims to stop recording.

> all that's required to make recording a phone call legal is to play a 3 second recorded message

In some jurisdictions, all that is required is an audible beep (or even no notice at all). In others, full consent [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_call_recording_laws#...

I am not a lawyer or something, but maybe, saying "By continuing, you agree to have the call recorded for quality and training purposes" makes more sense? It's technically verifying the consent, I guess.

Why would I have to say anything in a one party consent state?

You can and should.

May is a synonym for can. "May/can I use the bathroom?"

So they are giving you explicit permission to record the call if they say the call may be recorded.

No it isn't.

May is about permission or likelihood. Can is about capability. A telephone call can be recorded even if it may not be recorded. That is the recording apparatus exists and is connected needing only the signal to start recording but permission is not forthcoming.

It is only in colloquial speech that the two are equivalent.

Presumably you could.

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