Hi Ken,
I am an alarm company owner in southern California that has used a number of your contracts over the years and I always enjoy your e-newsletter.
With all the discussion recently about central stations I am wondering that your opinion is on a central station that does not do any voice recording of any calls in or out to anyone. When asked about this the CS claims that they do two way voice monitoring all across the country and that some jurisdictions either prohibit recording calls completely or have such unique requirements that it makes it impossible for them to filter out and accommodate each jurisdictions requirements and accordingly they do not record. I have seen recordings get my company and the central station both out of potential trouble far more often than not.
I question the reasonableness of this thought process and the conclusion they have drawn.
I am interested in your comments.
Yours truly,
John R. Becker
President
DIGITAL SECURITY
AND ELECTRONICS INCORPORATED
610 CALLE PLANO, CAMARILLO, CA 93012
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ANSWER:
Recording all incoming and outgoing conversations by the central station obviously eliminates questions of what transpired during a potentially dangerous situation. I suspect that most central stations record their telephone calls.
There is Federal Law and state laws dealing with audio recordings. All require either one party to consent to the recording or all parties to consent. Some states exclude certain parties from the statute. You can check audio statutes state by state on my web site at http://www.kirschenbaumesq.com/avstatutes.htm.
The recordings can also be consented to by contract. My monitoring contracts provide that the central station can record, and that the central station is the owner of the recordings, an issue of contention from time to time.
Recordings can of course hurt as well as help. If an alarm signal is mishandled the central station will be required to produce that conversation. Law enforcement personnel and private litigants will be able to get these tapes. If the central station is not required by any law in its jurisdiction to record and maintain the tapes then the central station is at liberty to decide when and how those tapes will be maintained. Keep in mind that once you decide on a regular business practice you will be expected to adhere to that practice. Should you not adhere to that practice in a particular case you may find that a court will permit an adverse finding, which means that your failure to produce the tape will permit the trier of fact, either judge or jury, to find that the tape would prove you mishandled the call.
Because of the sophistication of central stations today and the available technology I think it prudent for central stations to record their operators telephone conversations. Getting proper authorization in the monitoring contracts would be a good idea, although unnecessary in most situations.