Data protection statement: telephone calls

Contents

- Purpose

- Use of call recordings

- Calls that will be recorded

- Storage of call recordings

- Retention of call recordings

- How we inform our customers that we record calls

- Requests to access or delete call recordings

This statement outlines the call recording process for incoming and outgoing calls made from and to Uttlesford District Council's main telephone line 01799 510 510 but excludes all directly dialled calls to individual council extension numbers.
 

Purpose

The purpose of this statement is to ensure that our call recording processes and procedures are compliant with the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) / UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR) legislation, including retention periods and the reasons for recording.

Incoming telephone calls via 01799 510510 will be recorded up to the point of termination or upon transfer to an internal council extension or when transferred to an external telephone number.

All payment calls are in line with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) where payment card details are taken via a secured line.
 

Use of call recordings

Call recordings will be used for the following purposes:

• Help identify staff training needs and help improve team performance.
• Help protect customer service advisors from abusive or nuisance calls.
• Assist in complaint/dispute resolution.
• Assist in quality control to ensure accuracy of information provided.
• Assist in monitoring customer contact processes.
• Assist in customer demand analysis.
• Measure and improve the quality of the customer journey/experience.
• Manage quality performance of advisors (all advisors are made aware of this)
• Collate feedback from customers and ensure positive improvements are made.

Call recordings may also be used for the following purposes:

• Provide evidence in the resolution of complaints/ombudsman investigations.
• Provide evidence for criminal proceedings.
• Clarify the content of a particular conversation.
• Investigate fraudulent activity.
• Provide evidence in assessing the seriousness of threats.
• Provide evidence to seek injunctions against abusive customers.

Calls that will be recorded

This statement applies to all Customer Service Centre staff including those working from home.

This includes the following:

• All incoming and outgoing calls made by the customer services advisor.
   
• Internal transfers. This is when a caller is transferred by a customer services advisor to a back-offices department, this includes the duration of the call between customer services advisor and internal Uttlesford District Council staff member is recorded but once the call has transferred, the recording terminates.

Call recording will stop when:

• a customer has been transferred to our automatic telephone payment line
• the customer services advisor terminates the call
• the customer terminates the call

Storage of call recordings

Calls will be recorded and stored within the council's call recording system with restricted access and can only be accessed via an authorised team leader or supervisor.

Recordings constitute the personal data of both the caller and the advisor. Therefore, they will be managed in such a way that the rights of data subjects (caller and advisor) can be fulfilled, and all the obligations of the data controller (Uttlesford District Council) are observed as per Uttlesford District Council's data protection policy statement.
 

Retention of call recordings

Recordings will be stored securely and retained for 90 days after which they are automatically deleted within the system functionality.

Any recordings which may need to be used for the purposes of criminal proceedings or longer-term investigations that have been extracted from the system, will be kept in a secure place until any such proceedings/investigations have come to an end. At this point, they will be deleted.
 

How we inform our customers that we record calls

All customers are advised as part of the corporate welcome message that calls are recorded.

A caller may request that their call is not recorded. In this situation, the caller will normally be advised to contact Uttlesford District Council by an alternative channel.
 

Requests to access or delete call recordings

Anyone who wants access to their call recordings or to have these deleted from the system should make this request at any time by submitting a Subject Access Request (SAR) to the council. 

Call recordings are no longer available after 90 days.

Customers can submit their request by the following methods.

In writing

Data Protection Officer
Uttlesford District Council
London Road
Saffron Walden
CB11 4ER

By email

Email: dpo@uttlesford.gov.uk

Website

Submit a Subject Access Request (SAR) to the council.