Often when you call a company’s customer service department the call is recorded, usually “for quality control purposes”. This is perfectly legal as long as you are informed in advance that the call will be recorded. But what is meant by “quality control”? Kris Seyen is a legal expert specialised in privacy law. In an interview with the VRT’s consumer affairs programme WinWin, Mr Seyen explains what the law is regarding an individual’s privacy when they call a customer service department.
Does the law allow companies to record calls made to their customer service helplines?
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The VRT Radio 2 listener Paul Van Herck asked 'WinWin' whether a company may record a call made by him to their customer service department without him having given his express permission. He added that he has no idea what companies do with the recordings.
Kris Seyen is a legal expert in the field of privacy law. He advises customers on data protection. According to him, companies are perfectly within their rights to record a call. "They only have to clearly state that the call is or could be recorded and what the reason is why a recording is being or might be made. If you don’t wish to be recorded, the best option is to put the phone down and hope that you can contact the company online by, for example, a contact form”.
What exactly are “quality control purposes”?
Paul Van Herck wonders what exactly is meant by “quality control” as this is invariably the reason given for a call being recorded. Kris Seyen explains that the calls are recorded either to be used later for training purposes or to enable supervisors to monitor members of their team.
'WinWin' asked several large companies whether they record the calls made to their customer service departments. Almost without exception they said that calls are recorded and that the recordings are saved and used (e.g. for training purposes) at a later date.
For example, the water company De Watergroep records every call that is made to its general switchboard number. The recordings are used to train (new) staff. The recordings are listened to during coaching session for customer service agents and are kept for 14 days.
The telecom company Proximus says that it keeps recordings made of calls by customers to its customer care and technical support centres for 1 month. Here too the recordings are used for coaching purposes. However, they are also used to enable staff to better follow up a customer’s request or complaint.
The Belgian rail company NMBS also keeps recordings of telephone calls made to its customer care centre for a month. In addition to training purposes, the recordings are also used if a complaint is made about NMBS’ customer service department.
But what about sensitive information?
But what if you have shared sensitive information such as your national registration number during a call to a customer service department? Can everyone just listen to a conversation containing your private and personal details during a training session?
Kris Seyen says that companies are obliged to keep the amount of personal data disclosed in recordings used for training purposes to a minimum. However, while it is easy to omit personal data from written documents by redacting them. This is more difficult with sound recordings.
Paul Van Herck fears that a company might use a recording of a telephone call against him. "Imagine that you have a heated discussion with a customer service agent on the phone or you have a dispute with the company. Could they use the recording against you?"
Kris Seyen reassures Paul that this would not be the case. "A company may only use the recording for the stated purpose. So, if a telephone conversation with a customer has been recorded for ‘quality control purposes, it may not be used as evidence against a customer. If, for example, I were to confess to one of my energy supplier’s customer service agents that I am tampering with my digital meter, the recording of the call could not be used as evidence to prosecute me”.