If you plan to record phone calls within Zendesk Talk, you will need to comply with applicable laws and regulations.
Laws Relating to Call Recordings
Various federal and state laws apply to the recording of telephone calls, including the California Invasion of Privacy Act and other similar laws. Some of these laws require that both parties to a telephone call provide their consent prior to recording a call, whereas others require only one of the parties to provide this consent. There are also laws outside the United States, such as in the European Union, that require you to get the consent of participants before recording a call.
In addition to legal requirements regarding consent, there may also be laws governing how you use, disclose and secure your call recordings depending not only on where your participants are located, but also on business sector specific laws or industry standards.
Determining which laws apply to recording a call can be complicated when participants are in multiple states or countries, or if you cannot be sure about the location of one or more call participants. For these reasons, it is important to familiarize yourself with the laws and standards that will apply to your specific call recording use case to make sure that you configure your call recording technology in a compliant manner.
Best Practices
Obtaining consent: Because the consent laws vary and it can be difficult to determine the location of a call participant, it is a best practice to comply with the strictest consent laws and obtain consent from all parties to any recorded call. In some cases, this can be achieved by playing a pre-recorded greeting, or in others by clearly announcing that the call will be recorded at the beginning of a call and confirming the other party agrees. One option, depending on the laws in your jurisdiction, is to disable call recording for the phone numbers you use for outbound calls as outbound pre-recorded greetings are not supported in Zendesk Talk. The right approach for your use case will depend on your specific situation and should be decided in consultation with legal counsel familiar with your business. If a participant to a call elects not to be recorded, you should respect and comply with this choice.
Additionally, it is a good idea to keep up-to-date and adequate records of the method you used to obtain consent. Finally, you should not keep call recordings you don’t need by implementing a deletion policy.
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