My son has been looking for some specialist insurance recently which has meant a lot of phone calls from various brokers. The really interesting thing is that none of these brokers disclosed that they were recording the calls at the start of the conversation. Only when my son asked if they were recording the calls, did they say that they were. Not a lot of transparency there.

One of the brokers directed him to the privacy policy on a website which stated it was only related to the website, so what was the point in telling him to look there. It also didn’t mention call recording!

The interesting thing here is that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the body for regulating insurers requires them to retain telephone recordings for a minimum of 6 months. A company can be fined if they don’t hold the recordings, so why are the insurers declaring it as part of their business processes. Also remember that any telephone recording would have to be disclosed as part of a subject access request.

Failing to disclose that a company is recording calls, breaches the individuals right to be informed how their personal data is going to be used and this doesn’t even cover who has access to the recordings or where they are kept.