RadioBanter - View Single Post

December 20th 04, 07:10 AM

Dan Lanciani wrote:

In article . com,
(Curtis CCR) writes:

| Dan Lanciani wrote:
| In article
.com,
| (Curtis CCR) writes:
| [...]
| | In California, any phone call going over the public network
| | cannot be monitored or recorded without consent of BOTH
parties.
|
| [...]
| | The restrictions extend to the call center operations here too.
| | Customers hear "your call may be monitored or recorded..." The
| | montoring system records all calls on the customer service reps
| phone,
| | as well as what they are doing on their computer during the
call.
| In
| | addition to the line for call queues, there is also a line for
the
| CSR
| | to use for direct incoming calls or to make outgoing calls.
The
| | monitoring system records all calls on the CSR's phone
regardless
| of
| | what line is used.
| |
| | When recordings are reviewed by management, they are always
| reviewed by
| | two people. The privacy policy requires that as soon as they
| identify
| | anything they hear as personal or otherwise not related to
customer
| | service, they stop listening and move on. The direct line on
the
| CSR
| | phone does not have a monitoring notice so the privacy has to
be
| | extended to third party.
|
| Are you saying that they do record the direct line even though
there
| is
| no notice to the person on the other end? If that is the case,
| hasn't the
| law already been violated even if the people reviewing the tapes
try
| to
| avoid listening to "personal" content?
|
| Nope. It works out because of the way the law is written. The
| recording connection to the phone is authorized, and they don't
listen
| to personal communications.

I'm still a little confused about this. First, just to clarify, they
do
record the direct line without notice to or consent of the person on
the
other end, right?

Yes. It's a physical wiretap. Though multiple lines appear on the
phone, there is only one pair of wires going to it. The system
phyically taps those wires and records everything.

The primary purpose of the tap is to record incoming call center calls
to the customer service rep. The other calls are recorded are, I guess
you could say, a by-product of the legitimate wire tap.

No, unless the agent advises whoever he is taking to on the "direct"
line that the call may be recorded, the second party does not know.

So are you saying that the two-party-consent requirement
applies only to personal communications and that it is ok to record
everything
as long as you don't listen to the personal parts?

No, I said no such thing. The calls coming into the the customer
service agent on the call center lines have an announcement that the
call may be recorded.

The elements of the California wiretap law say that it's a crime to
make an unauthorized tap, or, in an unauthorized manner and without
consent of all parties, attempt to learn the contents of a confidential
communication. First, the wiretap is authorized and the employees
knows his phone is tapped. Second, no attempt is made to learn the
contents of any confidential (personal) calls. If they come up during
a review, as soon as it is known they are no-notice calls, the playback
is stopped and the review moves to the next call.

Who exactly is authorized
to make the personal/non-personal distinction?

The persons that are authorized to review calls. They don't work for
me, nor do I operate the call monitoring system. I cannot say what
position these people hold.

In California, am I as an
individual allowed to record all of my phone conversations without
notice to
the other party as long as I review only the non-personal parts?

If you want to record your phone calls without giving notice, you
should consult an attorney about the legalities of it. As non-attorney
I would say no. I suppose you could record all of your calls without
notice, but then you couldn't allow anyone else to listen to those
recordings.

Go back to what I originally described. The only recordings here that
are reviewed are those that come in on the CSR's call center line.
Those calls have notice to all parties that they may be recorded.

ddl@danlan.*com