Consumer advocates are investigating whether California residents may have been recorded without their knowledge in calls to the Czech Airlines customers service phone line.

In addition to many other companies being investigated for recording customer calls, Czech Airlines customer service has a responsibility to inform people on the phone who are calling in or receiving calls from the customer service line that their calls could be recorded. Failing to do so could be in violation of California laws that prohibit any business or person from recording a telephone call without the consent of everyone on the call.

This requirement applies to outbound and inbound phone calls. Consumers who believe Czech Airlines customer service may have recorded their phone call without their consent or without an automated message informing that the call was recorded may have had their privacy rights violated. Companies are not authorized to record phone calls without the consent of their customers due to existing California laws.

Unfortunately, numerous different companies have been accused of this kind of behavior, and some have even been subject to multi-million dollar settlements for violations of California’s call recording laws. Czech Airlines has been named as one company that may be violating call recording laws.

California prohibits the untold recording of any telephone call without an upfront notice being made to everyone that the call is recorded at that time. This is a violation of the California invasion of privacy act.

More often than not, businesses record telephone calls alleging that this is being used for improving customer service, training purposes or to reflect back on those calls at a later date in the event that your issue has to be escalated. This recording may be perfectly legal, given the proper disclosure.

In most cases, existing California laws require that every party who was involved in the conversation be aware and consent to the recording. Both the customer and the employee on the line with Czech Airlines customer service, for example, must be aware of the call recording. It is not enough for the employee at Czech Airlines customer service to know that the call is being recorded unless the person on the other end of the call has also been advised of this. Usually an automated recording will inform a person on the phone with the company that the call is recorded.

However, people who have called into Czech Airlines customer service say the company may be violating this law. If you believe you have already had your call recorded by Czech Airlines customer service without your permission, the company could be held accountable for damages amounting of up to $5,000 for each violation or three times the amount of damages suffered.