This Call Is Being Recorded | Hacker News Reader

This Call Is Being Recorded

shkspr.mobi

41 pointsedent32 comments

From the link:

>In the UK, it is perfectly legal for an individual to record their calls - and there is no need to inform the other party nor obtain consent.

This is missing an important qualifier. In the UK it is legal to record a call without telling the other party for your own use. However, if you intend to make the call available to a third party, you must have consent. You couldn't record a call without telling someone and then put it up on your blog, for example.

Other countries will and do vary!

"own use" - does that include a business's own use?

For example, could my employees record some calls for each other's use within the business, or would that count as a third party, if those call recordings remained private to the company?

It seems to be standard practice to have a "calls may be recorded for training purposes" disclaimer these days. Some even say "please tell the operator straight away if you do not wish to be recorded".

This doesn't really tell you what's legal or not, but I would assume that the only reason they put that stuff in is because they have to.

They may just add the disclaimer because they find it makes customers behave better. I suspect that knowing you're being recorded may reduce the chance of you screaming abuse etc.

The Ofcom advice linked to above[1] mentions business use specifically. In short, businesses can only record for some specific purposes (e.g. for regulatory compliance) and they have to adhere to the principles of the data protection act. It particularly mentions some privacy issues with regard to your employees.

I think that the disclosure to other employees would be covered by the DPA guidelines - if it's required for business purposes then it's fine.

[1] http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/oftel/consumer/advice...

Thanks for pointing that out. Some UK-specific links:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/oftel/consumer/advice...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#United...

Can informing the other party count as getting consent? For example if at the beginning of the call person 1 says "this call is being recorded and by staying on it you consent to having it published", does that count? Or could the other person say "no I do not consent" and then continue talking?

I've been wondering why this isn't standard already. I would love to have my phone record every call I make. It could store the raw audio, tag it with metadata about who was on the call, what time it occurred, and where I was. It could do speech to text asynchronously (if you store the raw audio forever, you could potentially get better transcripts as technology improves).

I would love it if Siri was paying attention to things said during the call. It could suggest calendar entries, notes, and reminders based on things said.

Then of course, all of the transcripts would be searchable via Spotlight or whatever indexing system one uses.

This reminds me that it annoys me that there are no useful actions available on iOS for working with voicemail. I often would love to forward a voicemail to email in order to delegate a task.

Yeah, having Siri or your equivalent voice assistant listen in during calls could be interesting. Reminds me of Jane from Children of the Mind.

There could potentially be major privacy issues, though.

I agree about the privacy issues. Siri as currently implemented requires sending data off to the Internet, which is one reason why I don't personally use it very much. One of the technical reasons that Siri itself can't do this currently is that on some providers it can't do data and voice concurrently on the GSM radio. I don't know how much of Siri could be done locally on the phone, but that can't be far off.

This is a great app, but FYI there are a very limited number of phones that record the line audio. Most require it to record through the mic while on speakerphone mode.

Not Supported:

http://www.grinzone-apps.com/1/post/2013/04/not-supported-de...

Tested (doesn't mean supported necessarily):

http://www.grinzone-apps.com/1/post/2013/04/welcome-to-our-b...

I don't see why me recording calls for use in a criminal trial would be illegal, when the NSA or GCHQ doing it against me is perfectly fine.

In the United States, rules about call recording vary a lot from state to state. Definitely check your local laws...

I've been using InCall with the Nexus 4 for a while and it works well, except when using my car's bluetooth phone integration.

I wonder what the magic is though. How did they work around the problems with MediaRecorder.AudioSource.VOICE_CALL on most devices?

And there I was, thinking this was going to be about the NSA. Isn't this fact implicit now?

"One of the great things about InCall Recorder is that it automatically upload the recorded MP3s up to DropBox - so your calls are instantly available to you and anyone else with whom you choose to share the folder." - And the NSA.

Same here. I was expecting the whole "a call may only be recorded if two parties are aware, the recorder and the NSA"

It is. The grassroot NSA-YOUTH movement thrives on all these new snoop apps.

Off topic, but does anyone else make all their calls through Google Voice and get the 'This call is now being recorded' message randomly during conversations?

It has spooked everyone who has been on the other end of the line when it occurs.

If you accidentally press 4 during a call, you'll get that

"More than that, for some people [that the call is being recorded] really improves their attitude and their service."

I'm interested in hearing in what ways a caller's attitude changes when they know a call is being recorded.

With Google Voice, calls are routed through Google before they get to you IIRC.

With this in mind, would it be possible to route voice calls to a server in a jurisdiction where recording without consent is legal, have that server then connect to your phone and record both sides of the conversation.

i.e.: US phone line -> Recording Server Abroad -> US phone line

Also, does broadcasting count as recording? What if all calls are broadcast live (possibly encrypted) and then there is a server that is listening to all broadcasts on that frequency and records them?

As someone mentioned below, Google Voice can do this natively if you press a button during a call. It alerts the person on the other end of the line and makes a recording available in your account following the call. Quite useful and works on any phone provided you're using GV.

A lot of call centers will hang up if you tell them that the call is being recorded on your side.

Given the storage size of the Black Star, all calls worldwide are being recorded. Forever. "Just in case".

But ironically you can go to prison in many states in the USA if you record calls without the other party agreeing.

Only 12 states:

  * California
  * Connecticut 
  * Florida
  * Hawaii (in general a one-party state, but requires two-party consent if the recording device is installed in a private place)
  * Illinois (debated, see next section)
  * Maryland
  * Massachusetts 
  * Montana (requires notification only)
  * Nevada 
  * New Hampshire
  * Pennsylvania
  * Washington

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#Unite...

I get a "This item is not available in your country' error when I try to install from the Play store, which is strange for a free app. Anyone else?

I had this on my Treo. It was incredibly helpful, especially if you hate writing stuff down.

Nice, but why that program asks for network access permission? Deal breaker for me.

In order to upload recordings to Dropbox.

i mean really? my ancient palm treo 600 could do this (and so much more newly rediscovered functionality of modern 'smart'phones.)

Anyone know what the law is in Canada?

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