Compliance Guide

Guidance for Recording Calls with ServiceTitan

General information about laws you should know when using ServiceTitan's call recording services. Updated February 22, 2021.

What This Covers

This article provides general information about important laws you should know about when using ServiceTitan's services. Laws relating to call recording vary by country, state and province and there are separate federal laws as well.

Best Practice

A best practice is to obtain consent from all parties at the beginning of a call. Document how you obtain consent. Getting your customer's verbal okay to the recording is a gold standard.

Not Legal Advice

This article is not legal advice nor should it be relied upon as a definitive statement of the law. ServiceTitan does not and cannot offer legal advice to ServiceTitan's partners and customers. ServiceTitan service users should consider obtaining competent legal advice prior to using ServiceTitan's calling and text features. ServiceTitan updates this information twice per year, so it is possible that the laws may have changed since the last update.

General Rules Applicable to All Calls

Federal, provincial and state wiretap laws in the U.S. and in Canada generally prohibit listening in on phone calls, recording phone calls, or both, unless you have obtained sufficient consent from the call participants. If you are a party to the call, then you have provided your consent. In some jurisdictions, however, the applicable law requires the consent of all the parties of the call – not just you. The wiretap laws generally apply whether you are on a call using a landline phone, a cell phone, or calling a number using a computer/web phone.

⚠ IMPORTANT

Some states treat divulging an illegally obtained recording as an additional crime or unlawful act, separate from the recording.

Location is Key

Nearly every jurisdiction in the U.S. and in Canada has adopted a wiretap, eavesdropping, intrusion, or related law, and they vary. This means that whether an activity is lawful or not depends, often, on the laws in the states where the participants in the call are located. Some states treat these issues as criminal offenses, others treat them as civil offenses, and some treat them as both. For example, federal wiretap laws allow violators to be criminally prosecuted and/or sued by a private party harmed by the act (a "private right of action").

One-Party versus Two-Party Consent

Under federal law and in most states in the U.S., the recording of telephone calls is permitted with the consent of one of the parties to the call. These are called "one-party consent" laws and generally require one of the persons participating and recording the call to provide consent to make the call recording lawful. For example, if you are on a call in a one-party consent state and talking to another person in the same state, you can generally record the call. In some but not all one-party states, recording of a call is permitted if a third-party (for example, an employer) has obtained prior consent from one of the participants (for example, an employee) and knows that the call will be recorded.

In a minority of states, in the District of Columbia and in Canada, however, every party on a call—that is, you, your employee, and your customer—must provide consent to the recording for it to be lawful. In those cases, employees and other members of your personnel may consent in advance to those recordings by consenting to sufficiently detailed internal privacy policies.

📌 Note: It will almost certainly be unlawful to record a phone call when you are not a party, do not have consent from at least one party, and could not otherwise naturally have overheard the conversation.

Obtaining Consent

In many jurisdictions, consent must be obtained prior to the recording, meaning that getting consent after the fact cannot is insufficient. Jurisdictions also vary in terms of how explicit the consent on the part of the recorded party must be. And, as mentioned above, whether you need the consent of all call participants varies by location and may be difficult to figure out. A best practice is to obtain consent from all parties at the beginning of a call. In the United States, this can be done by providing a statement that the call may or will be recorded, and if the other party does not object, continuing with the call.

Canadian Calls

For calls made to or received from Canada, you must, in addition to informing the customer that you are recording a call, you must clearly state the purpose of the recording. To state that you are recording the conversation for quality assurance purposes if the recording will be used for other purposes, such as marketing or profiling, would not be considered as having obtained valid consent. Informing the individual of the purposes can be done in a variety of ways—verbally, by pressing a number on the keypad (in the case of automated messages) or with clear messages beside a phone number being displayed on advertising of other mediums (for instance: If you have any questions about your bill please call 1-800-XXX-XXXX. Please note your call will be recorded for...)

💡 Tip: Getting your customer's verbal okay to the recording is a gold standard. Another best practice is to mention that the call will be recorded and stored by a third party (ServiceTitan). You should also document how you obtain consent.

If a Customer Objects

If a calling customer objects to the recording, it can ask that the company not record the call or use an alternative approach such as visiting a retail outlet; writing a letter; or completing the transaction online.

Do not record the call

Ask that the company not record the call.

Use an alternative approach

Visiting a retail outlet; writing a letter; or completing the transaction online.

Reference

One-Party and Two-Party States

As noted above, one of the most important factors when determining whether call recording is lawful is whether a jurisdiction is a one-party or a two-party jurisdiction. The two-party consent rule applies under the federal and all provincial privacy laws in Canada. Below is a list of whether a state is one-party or two-party based on current information. Remember, these laws may change over time, and ServiceTitan only updates this document twice a year. Where a state has a conflicting law or a closely related privacy law that may create liability we have erred on the side of caution and marked these as two-party states.

State	One-Party		State	One-Party	Two-Party
Alabama	✓		Montana		✓
Alaska	✓		Nebraska	✓
Arizona	✓		Nevada		✓
Arkansas	✓		New Hampshire		✓
California		✓	New Jersey	✓
Colorado	✓		New Mexico	✓
Connecticut		✓	New York	✓
Delaware		✓	North Carolina	✓
District of Columbia		✓	North Dakota	✓
Florida		✓	Ohio	✓
Georgia	✓		Oklahoma	✓
Hawaii		✓	Oregon		✓
Idaho	✓		Pennsylvania		✓
Illinois		✓	Rhode Island	✓
Indiana	✓		South Carolina	✓
Iowa	✓		South Dakota	✓
Kansas	✓		Tennessee	✓
Kentucky	✓		Texas	✓
Louisiana	✓		Utah	✓
Maine	✓		Vermont	✓
Maryland		✓	Virginia	✓
Massachusetts		✓	Washington		✓
Michigan		✓	West Virginia	✓
Minnesota	✓		Wisconsin	✓
Mississippi	✓		Wyoming	✓
Missouri	✓		Canada (all provinces)		✓

✓One-party — only one call participant's consent required

✓Two-party — all call participants' consent required

Last updated: February 22, 2021.