They is why there is the concepts of one party and two party call recording consent.

If you are in a one party area, you absolutely can record the call without telling them.

Not entirely sure how it works with 2 party areas if both parties want to record the call. I am not fro a two party area.

At least in the UK, they do.

They inform you so that you can retract consent (by hanging up)

In Portugal the law states any party can record as long it gets consent from the other parties, and those consents can be withdrawn at any time.

Can they record you without consent where you live?

In finland, you can record any conversation that you are a part of, without asking.

I think the standard US phrasing is, "This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes." It is a warning to you, but also a concession from them that you may record, since it doesn't say they may record the call, only that it may be recorded.

See, sometimes you really need the passive voice!

two party consent vs one party consent. The more I learn about it, the more I understand why my old boss hated my clarifying questions on business strategy...

The problem is that there's often no alternative means to access the service(s) you need. There should be a way to revoke consent without disconnecting.

I don't record my calls, but I take remarkable meticulous notes that I'm happy to call upon should the need arise. If there's a dispute, the company can produce recorded evidence to demonstrate that the notes I've taken were incorrect.

Varies by jurisdiction but in Australia on most calls you can just tell the operator that you do not wish for the call to be recorded.

You could ask them if you may record the call and I guess they would have to follow their own policy on that.

Why would you want a recording though ?

consents can be withdrawn at any time.

Hmm, ex post facto?

That turns any legal issue into "he said she said", which corpo deffo doesn't want.

In Europe smartphones have all call recording features disabled. "Because of regulations". So corporations and scammers can record us whenever they wish, bu lt we cannot, even though it would provide us some defence. I thing the 'regulations' here protect the wrong side. Which is surprising, as EU is usually quite decent in consumer protection.

When you are connected with a person, you can often ask for a non-recorded line, though they don’t advertise it. It’s not ideal that your call is recorded until that point, and it’s obviously an extra hassle, which is still a problem.

Lol, is this USAian propaganda? Absolute humbug.

I'm not sure that is legally reliable... The word "may" has two meanings, one expressing permission, the other expressing possibility. Clearly they are related, but not the same, so maybe the mean "it might be recorded" rather than saying "permission exists to record it"

No. You're wrong.

Also it’s often misunderstood to refer to the act of recording itself, when it only relates to permissibility as evidence in court. People can record phone calls wherever. It’s only the usefulness of the recording in court that changes.

In order to share the file with you, you will have to get credentials with the company that will certainly require some degree of identity proofing.

Can you point me to the law that allows that?

By continuing to stay in this call you are obviously agreeing to be recorded unless you have the option to deny the request.

My google Pixel on Android 17 promoted me a few times to record it.

More to say, if I agree to the recording at the beginning and then a few minutes into the call change my mind, that's allowed.

I can't really wait until an hour after the call, realize I shouldn't have over shared and ring you to say that you can't record our call.

I'm pretty sure they are. Them telling you that they're recording the call is both them "getting your consent" to the recording (Because you continued the call) and them consenting to the recording. They may not think you will have a copy of the recording, but they basically started by saying the call can be recorded.

https://www.finlex.fi/api/media/statute-foreign-language-translation/893995/mainPdf/main.pdf?timestamp=2025-12-04T06%3A17%3A49.000Z

Chapter 24, section 5.

smartphones have all call recording features disabled.

By default - I believe if you are determined enough, you can record the call, if nothing else with a mechanical device attached to the earpiece of your phone.

In the old terms: there's an app for that...

Even when the default app recording is disabled there are plenty of audio recording applications which work quite well - including with transcription. Ever need a transcript of a meeting? Put the phone in your shirt pocket with a recording app active - it's amazingly efficient.

that will certainly require

Nothing. Legally - all kinds of requirements. Companies and their employees following ALL the laws? Never happens with 100% certainty.

They are, and you should.

Most States are single party consent for recording. That means if anyone on the call wants to record the call, they can. So you don't even need to ask.

A few States require everyone to consent to the recording. If everyone does, anyone can.

Interesting question: what if the call crosses from a two party area to a one party area?

If the call goes from Georgia (one party) to Florida (two party) can the Georgia caller legally record without the Floridian's consent?

Can the Georgia caller then use the legally obtained recording in a Florida courtroom? In a Georgia courtroom? On national news? If both parties are Florida residents but one party drives into Georgia for the duration of the call?

It also comes into play for civil damages if the recording is published.

Am I reading the correct bit?

Chapter 24, section 5 - Eavesdropping

A person who unlawfully listens to or records with a technical device

1. a discussion, talk or other sounds of private life, where these are not intended for his or her
   knowledge and which occur or arise in a place covered by the right to domestic privacy, or
2. secretly, elsewhere than in a place covered by the right to domestic privacy, talk that is not
   intended for his or her knowledge or for the knowledge of any other third parties, where the
   circumstances are such that the speaker has no reason to believe that a third party is listening
   shall be sentenced for
   eavesdropping to a fine or to imprisonment for at most one year.

An attempt is punishable.

This to me seems like it reads against what you are saying no?

EDIT: And actually, isn't this more about an unknown third party anyway?

They do consent. "This call may be recorded" is giving you permission.

Having worked in a call center, I would be surprised if such a thing is even possible.

That said, the call recording software was so bad, less than half of calls were actually recorded anyway. But they tried on all of them.

To get around the legal side, they built a mandatory audio warning into the app. The moment you hit record, it loudly tells the other person they’re being recorded, which checks the legal boxes for consent under EU privacy laws.

As a resident of a one-party-consent state, I absolutely loathe that fucking thing. Who the fuck does Google think it is, to unilaterally decide that I'm not allowed to exercise my right to record without notice?!

That reminds me, I need to check if GrapheneOS gets rid of the asinine warning.

Interesting question: what if the call crosses from a two party area to a one party area?

The party in the two-party area needs to get consent from the other, but the party in the one-party area doesn't.

Anybody who tells you the party in the one-party-consent area needs to get consent because the call crosses jurisdictional boundaries is a totalitarian piece of shit who believes in extraterritorial jurisdiction.

if nothing else with a mechanical device attached to the earpiece of your phone

That hasn't been a thing since Bell telephone landlines.

I only know about it because I worked in a call center and it was literally impossible at my phone, but we just transferred it to a manager’s direct line.

It may well depend on what type of call center it is though, because we dealt with privileged information in many calls. I’ve done it as a caller since, but only with similar places, so I could a sales center or cable company being different

The following states are all-party consent:

• California
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Florida
• Illinois
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Montana
• New Hampshire
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Washington

IANAL, but if you are in a one party consent state, and they are in a two party (aka all party) consent state, typically all parties must consent.

If you call a customer support line and it says "This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes", then staying on the line means you consent. I absolutely record all customer service calls, because if it goes absolutely terrible, I love knowing I can just play back what they said. I haven't had to resort to that yet, but it's always good to have it as a backup.

For reference, I just use BCR on my rooted android

It's part one, if you are in the discussion, it is intended for you to know, and so is not a crime to record.

Sharing the recording may break other laws though.

It doesn't matter which meaning it is. Either way, if a call might be recorded and you stay on the line, you agree to the possibility of it being recorded. Like wise, them saying the call might be recorded could easily mean it might be recorded by you. There is not an instance where they can consent to only them recording, and not consent to you recording, without a much more legally binding contract.

I always understood it to mean "this call might be recorded" but they are definitely recording. It's like a cheeky "who knows, maybe we'll record maybe we won't" when they are always recording...

Laws operate by restriction, not allowance. That which is not prohibited is permitted.

The probibitions on recording only apply to third parties. If you are part of the conversation, (or the participants have no expectation of privacy) it is permissible for you to record that conversation.

Single party consent means that your consent is irrelevant; they are permitted to record anyway, even if they told you they are not.

It also means that their consent is irrelevant: you are permitted to record anyway, even if you tell them you are not.

Call recording is built in on my galaxy S25

Single party consent means that you can record yourself, and you can record anything you hear. Your participation in the conversation is your consent.

The only way to revoke your consent is to withdraw from the conversation.

If someone offers you punch from a punch bowl and warns you, "there might be piss in it" while taking their own glass and drinking some of the punch, they might nevertheless be annoyed if you piss in their cup. Maybe they were only OK with the piss that was already in the punch. Maybe there was never any piss and they were just saying that as a very weird joke. To call it consent to drinking your piss is wrong.

There's two important parts to this:

1. Me recording a conversation / drinking my own piss is not the same as you recording the same conversation / causing me to drink your piss.
2. A comment about possibility doesn't necessarily imply consent anyway.

I mean, I'm quite open to the possibility that your interpretation is legally valid in the USA, or in some particular jurisdiction - and maybe you or someone else has a reference to back it up! I'm just saying that it seems kind of shaky just on the face of it, and could imagine a situation where a lawyer lawyers out of it.

And FWIW, I understood it to genuinely mean that sometimes the call is not recorded, because recording every single call might be expensive, or perhaps even some staff object to their calls being recorded. But I'm sure at a lot of places they record them all and use the same "maybe" language.

Where is this? In Germany at least consent has to come from all parties