Was your phone call with a customer service center like the Hunter Boots customer service line recorded? More and more people are reporting that their phone calls with businesses, especially with their customer service lines, are being recorded without their permission, potentially violating privacy laws.

California privacy laws are particularly stringent, making it illegal for a call to be recorded by any party without the knowledge and permission of all parties on the line. However, many businesses may be recording phone calls with their customers anyway, spurring investigation into illegal phone call recording in California.

The Hunter Boots customer service line is not the only customer service center or business under investigation for their phone call recording practices. Others under investigation include Dermalogica, American Airlines, Romano’s Mexican Grill, Tupperware, and more.

If you are a California resident and you believe your phone call with the Hunter Boots customer service line or another company was illegally recorded, your privacy rights may have been violated.

California Call Recording Privacy Laws

California privacy law is stricter than these laws at the federal level—in fact, the right to privacy is included in the California Constitution as an inalienable right for its residents. California privacy law has a particular focus on protecting residents from being recorded without their permission.

There are many reasons a business may want to record phone calls—in many cases, they do this as part of their policy for quality assurance or employee evaluation purposes. This is a perfectly acceptable practice, and completely legal as long as the business takes the proper steps to warn the consumer that the recording is taking place. This gives consumers the chance to opt out of the recording entirely.

After being warned that a phone call is being recorded (both inbound and outbound calls are included under this privacy law) simply staying on the line implies consent to recording. Similarly, hanging up implies denial. If California consumers aren’t warned at all about the phone recording, however, their privacy rights have been violated.

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 is engaging in a practice of illegally recording phone calls without proper disclosure, such as the Hunter Boots customer service line, 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.