By Joanna Szabo  |  March 29, 2018

Category: Consumer News

It is not illegal for businesses to record phone calls with consumers—in fact, this is a fairly common practice. However, under California law, there must also be a call recording disclosure at the beginning of the phone call to inform all parties that the call is being recorded, allowing them to give or withdraw consent.

This call recording disclosure law applies to inbound and outbound calls. Businesses like American Airlines, Miele, TGI Friday’s, and several others may have violated California law by failing to give proper call recording disclosure.

If you had a phone call with a company while in California and the company did not hold to call recording disclosurelaw, your right to privacy may have been violated, and you may be able to join a class action lawsuit investigation.

California Call Recording

California law has for many years been particularly aimed at protecting its citizens’ privacy, which is actually one of the inalienable rights of its state Constitution. A significant aspect of its privacy law is call recording disclosure, protecting consumers from having their phone calls secretly recorded without their knowledge and permission.

Of course, simply recording phone calls is not illegal—as long as all parties on the call are made aware that the recording is taking place. Businesses often have a policy of recording customer service calls for quality assurance. This or similar phrasing is often used for call recording disclosure at the beginning of a call, warning the customer and allowing them to opt out.

When you don’t hear these kinds of warnings, but suspect that the call is being recorded anyway, there may be an issue of California privacy law violation. If you are a California resident and have been subject to a company like American Airlines recording your phone calls without warning, you may be able to join a class action lawsuit investigation.

How Does Call Recording Disclosure Work?

The key to lawfully recording phone calls is call recording disclosure: all the parties on the call must be warned that they are being recorded, giving them a chance to opt out. However, it’s not actually necessary to respond verbally to grant or deny permission for the recording to take place—many of these warnings are automated, so a verbal yes or no wouldn’t necessarily work anyway. Hanging up is equivalent to opting out of the recording, and staying on the line implies consent to be recorded.

Filing a Call Recording Lawsuit

While California invasion of privacy law protects anyone who called or was called by someone else while in the state of California, this particular class action investigation applies specifically to California residents. If you believe that a company like American Airlines is engaged in a practice of illegally recording phone calls without proper disclosure, you may be able to file a lawsuit under California state law. A few major companies have been hit with lawsuits over illegally recording customer service calls. Some of these lawsuits have ended in multi-million dollar settlements.

If you are a California resident and have been subjected to a company recording phone calls illegally, you may be able to seek compensation by participating in a California illegal call recording class action lawsuit investigation.

Join a FREE California Call Recording Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you live in California and you did not receive a warning when calling a toll-free number, your call may have been recorded in violation of California law, and you may be entitled to compensation. See if you qualify to file a California call recording class action lawsuit.

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