Work phones & the law

[The Hypno-Toad]

Just a quick one for the legal beagles.

Just had a new phone system installed at work and it hasn't taken much to work out that they can now record all our phone calls either in or out.

I have not a single thing to hide (yet) but I was wondering what the employment law is concerning the usage of these recordings in disciplinary situations, if we have not been informed in writing that our calls are being recorded and its not in our contracts?

Also if the calls been recorded are from proper customers does not that affect their rights as well if they are not given one of those "all calls are monitored and maybe recorded for training purposes" announcements?

If you could direct me to an offical looking web page which I can save for possible future usage that would be appreciated too. I doubt 'well it was on PH so it must be true' would wash with the bosses.

Thanks in advance

[claypigeon60]

I think - NB, think - that it's legal to record calls so long as at least one of the parties is aware that the call is being recorded.

Whether your employer, or you, constitutes your end of the call I've no idea ...

[Plotloss]

If you're not informed you're being recorded then the recording is inadmissable.

[ipwn]

Perfectly fine as long as you are aware of this ( which you are ofcourse )

[jimmyjimjim]

The Hypno-Toad said:

it hasn't taken much to work out that they can now record all our phone calls either in or out.

Unless you had something out of the ark, they could do that with the old one too. Unless they have some archival system setup, it is very unlikely that every call is being recorded as a matter of course. Takes a fair bit of space for even a fairly small company.

If you come to someones attention however, it's a different matter.

In my last company, we developed a product that would record every call, and tested it in house, having sent an email to everyone warning them in advance that we would be doing this; listening to a few snippets of conversations daily to check for quality. Most people really didn't care; the only person who got arsey about this was one of the HR busybodies who demanded that we didn't record her calls as they could be confidential.

So we didn't. We did of course look at her records on the call logger instead, and found that 98% of the time she was on the phone to her boyfriend, hence her objection. Details passed to management, she didn't last long....

[Scraggles]

got company mobile phone, limit is £50 per month spend after someone who decided to go and work for someone else, think had bill of £150 or so....

tend to use own mobile if want to make personal calls

[ChristianZS]

Scraggles said:

got company mobile phone, limit is £50 per month spend after someone who decided to go and work for someone else, think had bill of £150 or so....

tend to use own mobile if want to make personal calls

:O £50.. My average monthly for work is £120! . They didnt take to kindly when I used my phone in the US and ran up over £350 in roaming charges though!


Call recordings are an absolute pain sometimes. We record approx 50,000 calls per day and that takes a fair chunk up!

[oyster]

jimmyjimjim said:

If you come to someones attention however, it's a different matter.

In my last company, we developed a product that would record every call, and tested it in house, having sent an email to everyone warning them in advance that we would be doing this; listening to a few snippets of conversations daily to check for quality. Most people really didn't care; the only person who got arsey about this was one of the HR busybodies who demanded that we didn't record her calls as they could be confidential.

So we didn't. We did of course look at her records on the call logger instead, and found that 98% of the time she was on the phone to her boyfriend, hence her objection. Details passed to management, she didn't last long....

I see, so because you didn't really like someone you basically got them hounded out. Nice.
And the techies in thr workplace wonder why some people don't like them?

[fadeaway]

oyster said:

jimmyjimjim said:

If you come to someones attention however, it's a different matter.

In my last company, we developed a product that would record every call, and tested it in house, having sent an email to everyone warning them in advance that we would be doing this; listening to a few snippets of conversations daily to check for quality. Most people really didn't care; the only person who got arsey about this was one of the HR busybodies who demanded that we didn't record her calls as they could be confidential.

So we didn't. We did of course look at her records on the call logger instead, and found that 98% of the time she was on the phone to her boyfriend, hence her objection. Details passed to management, she didn't last long....

I see, so because you didn't really like someone you basically got them hounded out. Nice.
And the techies in thr workplace wonder why some people don't like them?

Think that's more if your abusing the system/taking the piss, don't draw attention to yourself

[oyster]

fadeaway said:

oyster said:

jimmyjimjim said:

If you come to someones attention however, it's a different matter.

In my last company, we developed a product that would record every call, and tested it in house, having sent an email to everyone warning them in advance that we would be doing this; listening to a few snippets of conversations daily to check for quality. Most people really didn't care; the only person who got arsey about this was one of the HR busybodies who demanded that we didn't record her calls as they could be confidential.

So we didn't. We did of course look at her records on the call logger instead, and found that 98% of the time she was on the phone to her boyfriend, hence her objection. Details passed to management, she didn't last long....

I see, so because you didn't really like someone you basically got them hounded out. Nice.
And the techies in thr workplace wonder why some people don't like them?

Think that's more if your abusing the system/taking the piss, don't draw attention to yourself

I agree with that though.
But the quoted poster seemed to think because she was a busybody that the IT team would take it upon themselves to launch an investigation.

[MitchT]

Plotloss said:

If you're not informed you're being recorded then the recording is inadmissable.

I've always found that rule rather strange. The only way you're likely to get the truth in a recording is if someone doesn't know they're being recorded.

[ChristianZS]

oyster said:

fadeaway said:

oyster said:

jimmyjimjim said:

If you come to someones attention however, it's a different matter.

In my last company, we developed a product that would record every call, and tested it in house, having sent an email to everyone warning them in advance that we would be doing this; listening to a few snippets of conversations daily to check for quality. Most people really didn't care; the only person who got arsey about this was one of the HR busybodies who demanded that we didn't record her calls as they could be confidential.

So we didn't. We did of course look at her records on the call logger instead, and found that 98% of the time she was on the phone to her boyfriend, hence her objection. Details passed to management, she didn't last long....

I see, so because you didn't really like someone you basically got them hounded out. Nice.
And the techies in thr workplace wonder why some people don't like them?

Think that's more if your abusing the system/taking the piss, don't draw attention to yourself

I agree with that though.
But the quoted poster seemed to think because she was a busybody that the IT team would take it upon themselves to launch an investigation.

IT departments often do take more interest in the noisy people within a company. I know we certainly do.

[jimmyjimjim]

ChristianZS said:

oyster said:

fadeaway said:

oyster said:

jimmyjimjim said:

If you come to someones attention however, it's a different matter.

In my last company, we developed a product that would record every call, and tested it in house, having sent an email to everyone warning them in advance that we would be doing this; listening to a few snippets of conversations daily to check for quality. Most people really didn't care; the only person who got arsey about this was one of the HR busybodies who demanded that we didn't record her calls as they could be confidential.

So we didn't. We did of course look at her records on the call logger instead, and found that 98% of the time she was on the phone to her boyfriend, hence her objection. Details passed to management, she didn't last long....

I see, so because you didn't really like someone you basically got them hounded out. Nice.
And the techies in thr workplace wonder why some people don't like them?

Think that's more if your abusing the system/taking the piss, don't draw attention to yourself

I agree with that though.
But the quoted poster seemed to think because she was a busybody that the IT team would take it upon themselves to launch an investigation.

IT departments often do take more interest in the noisy people within a company. I know we certainly do.

Exactly. Don't shout too loudly about it, but if you do, be squeeky clean. In the example above, it was truly obscene how much she was taking the piss. If she hadn't kicked up such a fuss, the guy running the trial wouldn't have bothered looking, and it truly was less than 30 seconds work to see that she was on the phone for several hours a day, every day, to one single number. Hardly an investigation - but the abuse was so blatant that the member of staff who looked was obligated to report what he found to his manager. I never had a problem with her personally, as I was only in the office half the time at best. I probably spoke to her once a week and the same was true for the chap who was running the trial.

It was actually a very easy going company, that was one of only two incidents I can remember in several years. Both got a verbal warning, and that was it(the other incident involved long term abuse of national and international calls and dismissal would have been justified). She left of her own accord a few weeks later.

Back on topic though, if your company doesn't have a clearly defined policy in the staff handbook as to what constitutues permissable behaviour regarding personal calls, then you really have nothing to worry about, if all you do is make the odd call.

They may be able to use the evidence gathered from recording you to investigate you further, but let's face it, if they get that evidence, you're probably doing something pretty naughty anyway. Management may get an initial kick out of listening to you, but they'll tire of it very quickly.

I've set up bulk call and agent based call recording systems for several companies - the former are for call centers where 'your call may be recorded for training purposes' and they need the call recorded for legal reasons. These don't even get listened to unless there is a complaint. It's phyiscally impossible, when you think about it, you'd need double the staff.

Agent based call recording is more ad-hoc, they may record all calls to and from an agent for a period of time for training, or if they receive a complaint about a particular member of staff. Come the end of the day, they may review a few calls out of however many were made. Again, they can't do every call, down to the sheer amount of time it would take to review them all.

All you need to be concerned about is if the management decide to target you for whatever reason. At which point, 'reasonable personal use' springs into action, and you've got nothing to worry about.

Except of course if every call you make concerns your dodgy dealings.

[Scraggles]

on the subject of dodgy dealings, had some guy send me a works email to me some other guy offering them the latest wares and films, but being a numpty had managed to email the whole company with a list of the current ones and prices...

seems the MD emailed him to thank him for his offer and asked him to meet him in the office at 9:00 sharp the next day