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Recording Compliance with Wingman
Recording Compliance with Wingman

How to obtain one-party or two-party consent for call recordings

Kesava Mandiga avatar
Written by Kesava Mandiga
Updated over a week ago

We’re committed to helping our customers understand and comply with legal and regulatory requirements for recording meetings. The laws vary by state, region and country but the gist is — if you record a meeting, you need consent.

Read on to understand consent for recordings, the legal requirements and how Wingman helps your business stay compliant.

Understanding consent for call recordings

  • One-party consent or single-party consent means that you can record a call if you have consent from one of the parties in the meeting.

  • Two-party consent means all parties have to be informed that the call will be recorded, and the party recording the conversation must obtain prior consent (active or passive) from them.

  • Active consent is when participants are informed that the meeting will be recorded (and why) and they agree verbally or through an approval button (web).

  • Passive consent is when you simply inform participants that the meeting will be recorded. If they join the meeting (or don’t object when you inform them on-call), they’ve consented.

The law says…

  • In the US, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) mandates one-party consent for call recordings at the Federal level. However, as many as 12 states now require two-party consent.

  • Australia, Canada, South Africa, UK & Ireland require two-party consent for call recordings.

  • The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) says you have to justify the need to record the call and obtain unambiguous consent from all parties before recording. This works similarly to the two-party consent process, but you need active consent.

  • Global audience? Best to be cautious — shoot for the highest requirements.

⚠️ This is a basic summary, not legal advice. Please consult your legal counsel on which laws apply to your business and how you should obtain consent for recordings.

How to ensure recording compliance with Wingman

Dialer Calls

Since dialer apps automatically record calls, Wingman simply imports those recordings and analyzes them for you.

  • For inbound sales calls, most dialers can be configured to play a message before connecting to a rep.

  • For outbound, apps such as Outreach and HubSpot's dialer can be set up to record calls only to single-party consent states. It isn't foolproof as calls may not be recorded at all based on the area code of your prospect’s phone number (and not where they actually live).

  • Alternatively, you can start every call with “Hi, this is John calling on a recorded line…” to inform and seek consent.

Video Calls

Your video meetings are recorded by the Wingman bot, so admins can customise recorder settings to ensure compliance. There are three ways to seek consent for recordings in Wingman.

1. Pre-meeting consent page

Show a custom “this meeting will be recorded” page to all participants when they click the meeting link to seek active consent. Works with Google Calendar. Learn more.

Pre-meeting Consent Page

2. Audio announcements

Automatically inform participants as soon as they join the meeting with a customizable audio snippet to seek passive consent for recording.

On-Call Audio Announcements

3. Email reminders

Automatically send participants a meeting reminder with a custom compliance note. Learn more.

Email Reminders

Questions? Send us a message at support@trywingman.com or via chat in the app. We’ll come flying.

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