Data Protection & GDPR

6 New Rules to check before recording your customers’ phone calls

The old Data Protection Act will be replaced on 25^th May 2018 with new regulation called General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR for short. This will not be affected by the UK leaving the EU.

Whilst many companies will be concentrating (hopefully) on other aspects of GDPR for example, security of personal details and marketing Opt-Ins GDPR also changes the rules on call recording. And if a current call recording system is already in place it would be prudent to check the capability of the system in relation to the new rules.

Current rules on call recording make it acceptable to record a call if a recorded or written message informs the caller (for example on a website, or on correspondence etc.). GDPR changes this in that a company must get the customer’s consent to record a call first. This may be prior to a call for regular customers or for new customers at the beginning of the call. There are also five other exceptions including:

1. The customer has consented to you recording their calls
2. Recording is necessary for the performance of a contract with the subject or to take steps to enter into a contract

1. Recording is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation, for example, to comply with the requirements of the Financial Conduct Authority and MiFID/MiFIDII regulation
2. Recording is necessary to protect the vital interests of a subject or another person
3. Recording is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller

6. Where call recording is necessary for the purposes of legitimate interests pursued by the controller or a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests, rights or freedoms of the data subject

There is a more defined list of special categories from the ICO. (Information Commissioners Office)

The customer’s right to be forgotten

As well as the customer having the right to not be recorded under GDPR they also have the right to be forgotten. It’s essential that any call recording system makes it very easy to find all the calls belonging to that customer. This could be achieved by the recording system capturing the incoming call identity (CLI), or via notes added to a call or via Voice Analytics.

If you are considering recording your telephone calls or already have a system in place talk to our call recording specialists on 0203 4881498 for further information on GDPR.

We recommend the Vidicode UK Apresa Call recording system which enables callers to stop the recording and has a censure list to avoid that customer being recorded in the future. For existing call recording users, Vidicode’s VoiceCrunch is a voice analytics platform that will quickly find keywords or phrases to identify callers that want to be forgotten.

We recommend that customers familiarise themselves with the requirements of the ICO (Information Commissioners Office) regarding GDPR rules in relation to recording telephone calls. For more comprehensive information about the right to object to calls being recorded click here.