A San Diego man has filed a lawsuit alleging TD Bank violated California law on recording phone calls without consent.

Plaintiff Matthew Power alleges TD Bank secretly recorded a phone call that the bank made to Power’s cell phone on the morning of April 16, 2019. The conversation allegedly lasted around 23 seconds during which Power provided personal information.

Power alleges he was not advised that the call was going to be recorded upon inception of the call or at any point during the phone call. By not advising him the call would be recorded, he alleges TD Bank violated his privacy rights.

He says he “was shocked, upset and angry” that the bank had recorded its telephone conversation with him without his knowledge or consent to do so.

Power is seeking class action status for the lawsuit.

Overview of California Law on Recording Phone Calls

In the California state constitution, privacy is considered an inalienable right of all Californians. The California Invasion of Privacy Act adds further protection by making it against the law to record a phone call without receiving permission from everyone who is on the line.

If found guilty of violating California law on recording phone calls, the person or business that made the recording could be held liable for damages of $5,000 per violation or three times the amount of damages actually suffered.

California is one of eleven states considered “two-party consent,” also known as “all-party consent” states. The fact is all people on the line must provide consent for a phone call to be legally recorded in California and the other following states: Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington state, according to lifehacker.com.

Other states have “single-party consent” laws that allow a conversation to be recorded as long as one person participating in the conversation knows and agrees to it.

If someone from a single-party state has a telephone conversation with a person in California, the person from the single-party state is obligated to obey the stricter privacy laws of California. As such, all parties must provide consent before such a call may be legally recorded.

Reasons Calls May Be Recorded

Companies such as TD Bank might record phone calls in order to provide feedback to their telephone representatives. In some cases, a telephone sales or customer service representative is the “voice” of the company to a consumer, who may not interact with anyone else from the company at all.

Management might appreciate the assurance that their telephone representatives are courteous, attentive, thorough and that customers’ problems are resolved on the first call. Recording conversations provides a way for management to coach an employee without interrupting the employee while on the phone.

In other cases, phone calls may be recorded and later played in training classes as examples of what to say or what not to say to customers.

While the development of competent and trustworthy telephone representation is important to companies, they still must follow the laws that govern such recordings of phone calls.

The California Law on Recording Phone Calls Lawsuit is Matthew Power v. TD Bank USA, N.A., Case No. 3:19-cv-01665-CAB-MDD in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.