Most legal questions have fuzzy answers. There are exceptions, of course, but there are plenty of activities that might or might not be legal, depending on how you do them and where you do them. As an example, is phone call recording legal?

Once in a while, the media latches onto a highly visible case where telephone calls were recorded without one party’s data, and the resulting recordings were used in some nefarious way. Typically these cases end with one party recognizing illegal behavior, and numerous consequences are doled out.

Many people think recording telephone calls is always against the law, many think it isn't against the law if one party knows about the recording, and many think both parties must know about and accept the recording for it to be lawful.

The laws on recording telephone calls alter by state, and some localities have additional ordinances as well as state laws. Whether you place or receive the call may also figure into the legal questions surrounding whether you can record telephone calls without running afoul of the law.

There are two basic reasons for recording phone calls.

First, you may wish to record details of a conversation so that you can review them later . This is going to be a chat with a customer, a call from your counsel to clarify some legal issue, or a conversation with your marriage planner about the details of the sit-down dinner. These calls are not very likely to land you in trouble, even if you don't have authorization to record them.

On the other hand, you may make a decision to record phone calls to cause trouble for the other party, to catch a cheating partner or implicate a public official in some unbecoming behavior. Recordings of calls like this may be subjected to a lot of legal examination.

If you want to record phone calls so that you can review details of a project or debate later on you probably do not need to fret about the legal status of the recording. At the same time, it is an straightforward matter to get authorization before starting recording. If you both consent to the call being recorded, then there is no legal problem, and you can tape the call for posterity.

If you are intending to ambush somebody on tape, you should scrupulously study all of the laws and legal precedents surrounding your plan to record phone calls the other party wouldn't need to hear repeated. In reality you may want to consult a lawyer familiar with this area of the law, and pay for legal research into the legality of recording not only in your jurisdiction, but in the jurisdiction where the other party lives. And you must likely be prepared for a legal challenge even though you are sure you have done nothing illegal.

The issue is not so much whether you can record phone calls legally, as whether you're willing to face up to a legal challenge if you employ a recorded conversation in a way the other party doesn’t like. This is rarely an argument if you're recording a business conversation for your records and you ask authorization previously. It is just about always a difficulty when you employ a telephone conversation against someone who did not know they were being recorded.

There are occasions when recording a telephone conversation might be the easiest way to stop offensive behaviour. You may feel you need to record phone calls to bring an end point to a difficult situation. The question is not whether it's right to record phone chats, but whether it is unlawful. Before you take actions that may put you on the incorrect side of the law, you really should know what the law says.

If your plan to record phone calls involves recording everyday business talks so you can review details later on asking and receiving authorization to record the call will provide solutions to most legal questions. If, on the other hand, you are doing some investigative reporting or gathering evidence by telephone, you should be very clear about your legal position before you proceed.

If you're planning to record phone call, either for business purposes or to catch somebody doing something they should not, you need to know the law. Because laws vary by jurisdiction, you ought to be extremely clear about your situation in a legal sense. Read more tips on using phone recorder devices by Randy Leslie on his blog.

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Telephone Systems