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Call Recording Featured Article
June 23, 2010
The Legal Implications of "May I Take A Message?"
By David Sims, TMCnet Contributing EditorYes, there are "possible legal and regulatory changes" related to "the natural tendency of the new network to save messages," according to Carl Weinschenk.
He cites to a recent blog post on eWeek by Salvatore Salamone, which points out that "VoIP voice mail messages are likelier to survive than traditional voice mail messages."
Sure - in the old days, as Weinschenk says, "messages simply were recorded over. Today, each message usually ends up as a .wav file and a backup copy made. Thus, deletion of the original isn't as automatic and, even if it is destroyed, a copy often exists."
In other words, whether you intend to or not, your system does take the message.
Are there responsibilities your companies needs to know about to deal with this? Answer this quick quiz to see if you have all the bases covered already: "Is it OK to delete both the original and backup copies? Does the move to IP mean that more is expected of the company in terms of preserving messages? Are there special requirements under The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act? Sarbanes-Oxley? Other regulations?"
If you answered "D. None of the above because I really don't have a clue," then you might want to do some checking around.
Or take Weinschenk's advice: "Regardless of whether preserving the recorded calls is legally required, it makes sense to do so." That opinion is seconded by call recording companies. And yes it benefits businesses to point this out, but it's still not less true, that regulatory considerations might mean it's a good idea to preserve them:
"There is a new level of complexity arising in the meeting of e-mail and hosted services," as Weinschenk says. "And, again, regulatory compliance is a key concern. There are many questions to ask about how the service is configured. Some of these are mandated by the particular regulatory regime under which the organization works, while others are driven by internal mandates."
David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of David's articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for TMCnet here.
Edited by Juliana Kenny