GD-03 · Guide
Assume every call needs everyone's permission.
One-party and all-party consent, why a business taking calls from anywhere cannot rely on knowing where the caller is, and the one rule that works in every state.
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Do you need permission to record a business phone call?
Permission to record a phone call depends on where the parties are, and getting it wrong is not a paperwork problem. Federal law and most states allow recording with one party's consent, which means the business's own consent is enough. A minority of states require every party on the line to consent, and several of those treat a violation as a criminal offence rather than a civil one. Because a caller's location is not known before they speak, the only workable rule for a business that takes calls from anywhere is to get consent from everyone, on every call. Orabeam does exactly that, unconditionally: the recording notice is the first thing the AI front desk says, in every state, on every call, and it sits outside any setting a customer or an operator can switch off. This is general information and not legal advice; a lawyer in your state should confirm what applies to your business.
What is the difference between one-party and all-party consent?
One-party consent means one person on the call can agree to it being recorded — and if that person is you, no announcement is required. All-party consent means everyone on the line has to agree.
The federal Wiretap Act sets a one-party floor1. States are free to be stricter, and a number of them are. That is the whole of the complexity: you are not looking for one rule, you are looking for the strictest rule that could apply to a given call.
Why can't you just check which state the caller is in?
Because you find out afterwards. An area code is not a location — numbers move with people — and the recording has already started by the time anyone knows where the caller actually is.
Businesses that try to switch behavior by state end up with a rule that is right most of the time, and the exceptions are the expensive ones.
What does a compliant notice sound like?
Short, first, and clearly audible: that the call may be recorded, and by whom. It belongs before anything else, including the greeting — a notice after the caller has already said why they are calling has not done its job.
In Orabeam this is not a configuration option. The notice is the agent's first utterance in every state of the conversation, and there is no flag that removes it. If a customer asks for it to be turned off, the answer is no.
References
Where these numbers come from.
- 1Federal law permits recording with the consent of one party; state law may require all parties. 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d), Wiretap Act