This is a copyright issue rather than data protection. Ofcom's guidance
is correct:
Do I have to let people know that I intend to record their telephone
conversations with me?: No, provided you are not intending to make the
contents of the communication available to a third party. If you are you
will need the consent of the person you are recording.
This is because there is copyright in your words (belonging, probably,
to your employer). There is also performance right in your speaking of
them - this belongs to you, in all cases. Before anything can be put on
youTube - which is 'communicating to the public' in the words of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, the permission of all the
rightsholders has to be obtained. So you don't have to tell the person
making the recording that they can't do it in order for it to be an
infringement - it's an infringement unless you explicitly give
permission.
Michael Heaney
Executive Secretary, the Bodleian Libraries
Clarendon Building, Bodleian Library
Oxford OX1 3BG UK
t: +44 (0) 1865 277 236
f: +44 (0) 1865 277 187
e: [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lindsay Foody
Sent: 24 July 2012 10:07
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [data-protection] Customers Recording Conversations with Staff
We have a customer who records officers in their interview with him and
records conversations with staff in the public area. He is recording the
conversations on his mobile. He apparently usually says he is recording
the conversation.
Colleagues have asked if they can refuse to speak to the customer if he
is recording staff and in the public area.
I've looked back at a thread from 2009 which quotes the Ofcom guidance
at:
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/oftel/consumer/advice/faqs/prvfaq
3.htm
I originally thought that if he was recording the conversations for
personal domestic use then there may be little we can do - apart from
asking him to desist and certainly in the public areas where other
people's conversations may be inadvertently be recorded. If we are
giving him advice then we should be giving him the same advice whether
he is recording the conversation or taking handwritten notes or not
taking any notes at all.
However, I've since been informed that staff believe he is recording
conversations to use if there was ever a court case and that he has put
some recordings on youtube.
In terms of consent from the staff members, then presumably it is
implied consent it they carry on the conversation knowing it is being
recorded. If we tell him he must not share it with third parties
(including youtube) without explicit consent, then presumably we could
report him?
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