Quite often it is necessary to protect yourself, your company, your employees and your customers by recording important conversations so it’s clear who said what and when.
With Voipfone you can record any conversation any time or all calls all the time and you can play them back instantly from our network or store them forever on your own PC or database. This used to be a very expensive and hard to configure service, now it's simple and costs pennies.
How much does it cost?
It costs 2.5p (3p inc VAT) per minute of recording time.
How does it work?
With Voipfone you can record the calls you make or receive, either individually - just occasionally when you need to - or automatically all the time.
Recording Individual calls
If you have a phone that supports it eg one in the excellent snom range, just press its 'record' button. Recording will stop when you press the record button again or hang up.
If you don't have a snom or a 'record' button on your phone, that's no problem, you just press #0 and recording starts. Pressing #0 or hanging up stops it.
Auto-Record - Recording all calls automatically
This is a feature included with our Virtual PBX which can be configured for use on individual extensions and switched on and off as you need it.
The recordings will appear in your account as an MP3 file here: http://www.voipfone.co.uk/recording.php where you can either play it directly or download it to your PC.
You may make as many recordings as you like. Recording will stay in 'Your Account' for 30 days then be automatically deleted.
Is it legal?
Generally, yes, provided you follow some rules - there are various regulations you should be aware of and the law is different for home use and business use.
In summary, you may record calls at home so long as they are for your own personal use only and you may record calls if you are a business so long you take "all reasonable steps" to inform all parties that you will be recording them. “All reasonable steps” is not defined but may include written warnings on your web site and/or a voice warning.
Most organisations use phrases like these at the beginning of each call:
"For training purposes and your own security, your call may be monitored and recorded."
"In order to ensure excellent customer service, your call may be monitored or recorded."
Less formally, you could just say something like “I’m recording this conversation so that I have a proper record of it, is that ok?”
In some circumstances businesses may record without obtaining consent.
Please note: Our notes here, like Ofcom’s, are simply an attempt to point you at some of the law regarding recordings; you should obtain your own legal advice if you have any doubts.
Source material:
The interception, recording and monitoring of telephone calls is governed by a number of different pieces of UK legislation. These are the main ones:
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (“RIPA”)
Telecommunication (Lawful Business Practice)(Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000 (“LBP Regulations”
Data Protection Act 1998
Telecommunications (Data Protection and Privacy) Regulations 1999
