Cader NetworksWhy businesses ask for it
The most common reasons are dispute resolution (having a record of what was actually agreed on a call), staff training, and, for some regulated sectors, an obligation to keep call records at all. Whatever the reason, hosted VoIP makes it straightforward to add compared to older phone systems.
How it actually works
On a hosted VoIP system, call recording is usually a setting applied per line, per user, or across the whole account, rather than separate hardware bolted onto an existing phone system. Recordings are stored centrally and can typically be searched by date, number or user rather than needing to dig through individual handsets.
Who can access recordings
Access is normally restricted to specific admin users rather than open to the whole team, which matters both for practical reasons and for data protection. Recorded calls contain personal data, so who can listen to them and why should be a deliberate decision, not a default.
Retention: how long to keep recordings
There is no single right answer, it depends on why you are recording in the first place. A business recording purely for dispute resolution might keep recordings for a matter of months. A business in a regulated sector may have a specific retention obligation that runs much longer. Under UK data protection law, the general principle is to keep personal data, including call recordings, for no longer than there is a genuine reason to.
Telling customers
Standard practice is a brief automated message at the start of the call informing the customer that it may be recorded. This is both good practice and, for most use cases, expected under data protection guidance.
What we set up
We can enable call recording as part of a hosted VoIP or SIP trunk setup, with retention and access controls agreed as part of the install rather than left as an afterthought. See our business VoIP page for the full feature set.