There are a lot references in the news lately about people recording their calls or discussions, for different reasons ( you may check their reasons by simply doing a google research and recording + ) :
- Ray Dalio
- Jamal Kashoggi
- Omarosa Manigault Newman
You may understand that such a recording can be very important, even life changing!
So, how is that applying to you? It does not, you may say. Ok. How about the situation when somebody will finally test and release a working bot (or robot) that’s supposed to help you in your daily tasks, by becoming a natural « extension » of yourself – how will that robot will be trained to be you? Do you think you’ll have the time at that moment to « train » him ( or her or it – no longer sure…)? I think there is enough reasons to start recording your calls and discussions.
Before that bot is available on the market, you can simply take that conference call recording and upload the .wav file to a web site that does automatic transcription ( speech-to-text), you may see the IBM Watson free demo here.
This way you’ll automatically have the detailed « meeting minutes » ( as a side track discussion, I see less and less Project Managers that do properly their job and provide you the minutes after a meeting, their’s excuse maybe that in AGILE mode meeting minutes are no longer required?)
As you can see, I don’t even go to the obvious case were you can document on your side contractual agreements with companies and businesses that have demonstrated that they do no live up to the offers and promises they make sometimes over the phone ( see insurance companies, phone and internet providers, etc).
Or, that you can as well protect yourself for the Indian based phishing attacks about the Colonel Sanders CRA scam – record those ill intention people and then share that information with the Canadian anti-fraud center, maybe they’ll start doing something about those types of attacks…
Now, you’ll tell me, as the people I am informally discussing this matter with, that recording the calls is illegal. That is simply not true, in Canada…
Basically, in Canada if you are part of a conversation, you have the right of recording that PRIVATE and PERSONAL conversation, even WITHOUT asking the other parties involved their CONSENT for the recording.
Now, when inside company’s offices, is there the conversation with your boss a personal and private one?
The simple answer is YES, please see the details in the following article :http://blg.com/en/News-And-Publications/Publication_4539
Here you have more pointers and articles about :
- Private communications definitions: https://legaltree.ca/node/908
Excerpt from: https://criminal.findlaw.ca/article/can-i-record-private-conversations/
Canadian law is a little funny on that subject.
Section 184 of the Criminal Code prohibits willful interception of private communications, but provides an exception if one of the participants consents to that interception. Basically, that means if you consent to record your own conversation, it’s perfectly legal. If you can’t get your own consent, you may be breaking the law.
It is very much like the use of cookies lately, and the notices that you get on the webpages that you visit following the GDPR and privacy noise brouhaha! Simply saying during the conversation that you are going to record the call should cover your derrière…
RECORDING – TECHNICAL
You can record your calls by using ( and buying) an app on your iPhone or Android phone, there a tons on articles about that.
Personally, I record calls by doing a three way conference call ( me, the other person and the dedicated recording phone line). I have a dedicated number (DID) configured on Voip.MS SIP trunk connected to my FreePBX Asterisk. The DID is routed to a virtual extension that is configured with auto answer. Once the recording is finished the result .wav file is sent to me via E-mail. For the moment, I have limited the recording to the 30 min ( that fits my profile). But that can be changed ( increased) and instead of sending the file via e-mail, the FreePBX sends a notification withe the URL where the user can connect securely and download the result file, base on his credentials.
I prefer this method because this way I can record from no matter which phone ( cell phone, office conference call phones – while in phone call or even recording a meeting with no phone call, just people sitting in a room). This way the quality of the recording is much more improved rather than using the basic iPhone voice recorder app. More over, storage is not an issue, neither the data cellular plan is impacted. The concern of security is also addressed, it is only myself having the recordings, the storage is local, no cloud service is involved in the process.
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