CommLocker

Call recording and consent

Every call on a CommLocker Line is recorded, except 911 calls, which never are. Recording has no off switch. What your business controls is the recording notice: the short message that tells everyone on the call that it is recorded. This page explains why the notice is on by default and what changes if you turn it off.

What US law says

  • Federal law allows a call to be recorded when one person on it agrees (18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d)).
  • Eleven states require everyone on a private conversation to agree: California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington.
  • Connecticut and Nevada require everyone's agreement for phone calls.
  • Oregon and Missouri require it only for conversations in person, and Hawaii and Maine only in private places. Vermont has no recording law.
  • Calls between states can fall under the stricter state's law, and courts disagree on which applies. The safe rule is to treat every call as needing everyone's agreement.
  • Washington counts a clear announcement that the call is recorded as agreement, and the announcement must itself be recorded (RCW 9.73.030(3)).

The state list comes from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press recording guide, which links each state's law.

How CommLocker handles it

A notice that everyone hears, and that is captured in the recording, works in every US state. So by default:

  • The notice plays at the start of every recorded call, incoming and outgoing. On a call you make, it plays when the other side answers.
  • It plays again to anyone who joins later: when you add someone, start a conference or transfer the call.
  • Recording starts before the notice plays, so the notice is in every recording, and the record notes that it played.
  • Your business chooses the wording: the default message or its own.
  • The app shows that a call is being recorded for as long as it is.

The notice is one setting for the whole business.

Turning the notice off

Only the Owner or an Admin can turn the notice off, for the whole business. Before it goes off:

  • the app says plainly that your business becomes responsible for telling everyone on its calls that they are recorded, as the law where they are requires;
  • you tick a box to show you understand, then confirm;
  • CommLocker keeps who turned it off, when, and the exact wording they agreed to, in your business's audit log and as a record that can't be changed.

Turning it back on is kept in the audit log too. Calls are still recorded either way.

911

911 calls are never recorded or transcribed, and the notice doesn't play on them.

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