This site:
Monitor Laws has some good info regarding this issue. Here is some info from that site:
Before you monitor or record employees’ calls, make sure you’re familiar with the state laws governing such call monitoring ... and take these steps to make sure you comply:
1. Say it up front. Give notice with an announcement at the beginning of incoming calls that notifies third parties of your monitoring policy and its purpose. Examples: training purposes or quality assurance.
2. Seek consent. If some of your company’s calls are to a two-party consent state (see box below), you have two choices: Either avoid monitoring and recording calls that originate or terminate in such states, or precede the conversation with the notice that the conversation may be recorded. Your customer’s decision to continue with a call after hearing your recording amounts to prior consent.
3. Repeat it. Instruct employees to recite a similar acknowledgment of call monitoring and customer consent when making outbound calls to third parties. Tip: Attach stickers to business phones to remind employees to take this step.
4. Add a beep. Consider adopting a tone audible throughout a call as an indicator that the conversation is being monitored or recorded.
States that require dual consent for monitoring phone calls as of 2007 when this piece was written:
California
Connecticut
Florida
Illinois
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Montana
Nevada
New Hampshire
Pennsylvania
Washington
We advise, both verbally and in writing, to all our ACD supervisors who are using agent monitoring to have the calls hit the automated attendant first with the message that ALL calls may be monitored. Then, before the caller has a chance to speak, the agent is to inform the caller that the call may be monitored and then ASK if the caller would give their permission to have the call monitored.
There are exceptions, of course. We supply recording to the PA state police. They record EVERYTHING. At times, they don't even have a chance to inform. Pennsylvania allows the beep, in this case, to be "informed consent" in emergency situations. By the way, if the beep is not working, the police officers using the equipment are breaking the law and are liable for prosecution. We also have several ambulance and elder care dispatch centers that record every call as well and, by having discussions with the state's attorney general, we found out that the same law that applies to the state police applies to emergency services as well. The bottom line, for your particular situation, call your state attorney general's office and ask for the specific law and ALL appendices to it regarding your state's situation. You may have to pay for a copy of the law (we did) but it is very much worth it when there is a legal dispute. Remember, if you are the telephone company installer and either you OR your employer did not provide verbal AND written warnings (make sure you get a copy of the warning signed by a company officer), you can be dragged into court as well if the complaint has a "mad-dog" attorney.
Rcaman
