VoIP and Telephony Roundup

Since NCH is a leader in telephony and VoIP software, we want to give you as much information about these topics as possible in one place. Whether you are Wondering if Your Phone Got Left Behind in the Digital Transition, or if you are working on putting together a complete phone system for your home or office, here are some articles we have compiled over the last few months that will help you along the way:

• How VoIP Works
  
• How VoIP Can Help You Save, plus an example of some of those savings in action: Admin Corps Case Study on VoIP Savings
  
• Adding Voicemail to VoIP
  
• Call Recording Laws in the United States
  
• International Call Recording Laws and Regulations
  
• How Telephone On-Hold Messaging Can Help Your Business
  
• Tips For Designing an Interactive Voice Response Telephone System
  
• Auto Dialer Gives Added Power to Small Businesses Reaching Out to Customers and Clients
  
• When we added video call support to Express Talk for the Mac, we also talked about how video calling can be a great alternative to meeting in person especially when a team is spread out geographically
  

For more information about our different telephony software products that you can use to create a custom phone system solution, go to: www.nch.com.au/phone/index.html

International Call Recording Laws and Regulations

Last week we looked at Call Recording Laws in the US at both the Federal and State levels. Similar to how laws vary from state-to-state in the US, telephone recording regulations vary from country to country, and when you're recording an international call you need to be cognizant of the regulations of all the countries involved in the call.

Because many countries do not have specific laws covering telecommunications, or their laws are so vague they regulate on a case-by-case basis, your first course of action should be to check with your local government’s telecommunications authority. Local government agencies will be familiar with the various international telephone recording regulations. A great resource for Americans is the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) website, where there is a state-by-state listing of relevant local authorities. Outside the US, the consulate in any country is a good place to start; you should be able to find their contact information online. Be advised that calling these local authorities is important. It is not enough to do research online, there are simply too many variations and details.

Examples of international call recording laws:

Canadian one-party notification for call recording

Similar to a majority of U.S. states, Canada requires "one-party notification." This means you can record any phone call you participate in, even if you don’t inform the other caller.

British call recording notification law

The United Kingdom mostly requires single-party notification. However, the laws in the UK are somewhat vague. One of their missions is to protect employees by requiring non-recorded telephones in the workplace. So there’s little guidance for, say, an entrepreneur who works at home alone but makes sales calls they want to record. In such cases, it is advisable to check with a local attorney before recording any calls.

Australian call recording notification law

Australia’s applicable law, The Telecommunications (Interception) Act of 1979, states that whoever is being recorded must be informed. And this goes beyond mere phone calls to include any communication, including: "a conversation, a message, any excerpt of a conversation or message, whether in the form of speech, music or other sounds, data, text, visual images, signals or in any other form or combination of forms." Australia’s laws are extensive, so it’s worth taking a look at the guidelines available through the Australian Communications Authority (ACA).

Whether you want to set up a call recording system for quality assurance, compliance or any other reason, no matter what country you are in it is important to check your local laws, and the laws of other countries you will be recording. Particularly when laws are vague or have exceptions for businesses, you should get in touch with a lawyer or government official to make sure that your call recording plans won't be in violation of any laws.

Call Recording: A Great Tool As Long as You Know the Law

From medicine and law, to journalism or sales, voice records are kept for a variety of professions, making call recording software more and more popular. Any time when you need the voice equivalent of a paper trail—documentation that someone takes responsibility for saying something official—call recording can get the job done. Call recording can also be great for keeping minutes of conference calls.

But there are very serious laws governing call recording. So before you start recording, here is a quick introduction to the legal issues surrounding call recording:

First, US Federal law does allow recording of phone calls and other electronic communications with the consent of at least one party on the call. This means you can record any phone call you participate in, even if you don’t inform the other caller. At the State level, it gets a little trickier; some states have added another layer of requirements on top of the Federal law, insisting that all parties know when a conversation is being recorded.

It is important to note that when you record a conversation, you are subject to the laws of both the state you are physically located in, and the state(s) of the other people you’re calling. For example: California prohibits recording calls from other states unless the Californians being recorded have been told. So even if you are in New York, you are subject to California law if you record calls made to a Californian.

This is the reason why most American customer service departments begin their calls with a recording that says: “This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes.” They say quality assurance, but they’re also keeping themselves in compliance with the recording laws of all states.

So how do you know what the law is near you? Thirty eight states and the District of Columbia permit individuals to record conversations they are having without informing the other parties, according to The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), a DC-based non-profit organization that offers free legal assistance to journalists. These laws are referred to as “one-party consent” statutes, and as long as you are one of the people having the conversation that’s being recorded, it is legal.

There are 12 states that require, under most circumstances, the consent of all parties to a conversation. Those states include: California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington. Warning: Sometimes these laws are inaccurately called “two-party consent” laws but all parties must consent to the recording in these states even if there are more than two.

One law that applies in all states: It is almost always illegal to record a conversation that you a) are not participating in and/or do not have consent to record, and b) could not naturally overhear.

The RCFP has a complete state-by-state guide of all call recording laws. Once you have done your due diligence and checked the call recording laws in your area, you can start enjoying the benefits of call recording software, and still sleep easy at night.

For International Regulations regarding call recording, look for a follow-up post on International Call Recording.