Recording, texting and privacy rules

Steps

1. Open Settings, then Call Recording. Recording is off by default (“Never record”); the other choices are “Record every call” and “Let agents decide”.
2. Recording needs a Pro or Business plan, and it cannot be turned on without a recording announcement.
3. Write the announcement in both languages. It is played before the other party joins a recorded call, and again when someone presses Record during a call.
4. Decide whether people may stop a recording in progress.
5. Say why you record and what a caller can do instead if they do not want to be. The Commission d'accès à l'information sets out the conditions for valid consent in Quebec, and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada describes notice at the start of the call.

An announcement informs the caller; on its own it is not the whole of consent. Read the sources before you decide what yours must say.

Read more

• the eight conditions the Commission sets for valid consentSource: Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec
• the Privacy Commissioner of Canada on recording customer telephone callsSource: Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
• Consent formPage
• Recording announcements in Quebec: what to sayArticle
• Call recordingPage

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Steps

1. Open Settings, then Data Retention. Every number there is a deletion schedule; by default recordings are kept 30 days, voicemail 90 days and text messages 365 days.
2. Recording audio is deleted at Twilio, where the only copy is, so a deleted recording cannot be recovered. To change that window you acknowledge it and type DELETE to confirm.
3. Open Settings, then Privacy Requests. Identify the person by agent ID, phone number or contact ID, then answer an access request with an export.
4. To erase a person's information, run a dry run first to see what would be removed, then erase.

Law 25 sets no fixed retention period: keep information only as long as its purpose needs. Your account's data is stored in the United States (AWS US East), which matters for the assessment Quebec asks for before personal information leaves the province.

Read more

• the Commission on how long personal information may be kept and how to destroy itSource: Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec
• the Commission on communicating personal information outside QuebecSource: Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec
• Law 25Page
• Where your call data lives under Law 25Article
• Your dataPage

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Steps

1. A commercial text needs the person's consent, and it must identify you, give a way to reach you and carry a way to unsubscribe. The unsubscribe wording goes in your own message: nothing adds it for you.
2. The unsubscribe must keep working for at least 60 days after you send, and a request must be acted on within 10 business days. Replies of STOP, ARRÊT, UNSUBSCRIBE or DÉSABONNER are acted on straight away.
3. Record consent on the contact: how it was obtained, when, and a note. The contact then shows “Consent recorded”.
4. Open Settings, then Messaging Consent, to see every number that cannot be texted, the word the person sent and the date.
5. Release a number only if the person asked to be texted again: confirm that they did, and type the number to confirm.

Contacts created automatically when someone calls are a record of your calls. They are not a list of people who agreed to hear from you.

Read more

• Canada's anti-spam legislation (S.C. 2010, c. 23), consolidated, on the Justice Laws websiteSource: Department of Justice Canada
• Text messagingPage

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Steps

1. Read the emergency calling policy before anyone relies on these phones for 9-1-1, and tell your team what it says.
2. Open Emergency, under Manage. It has three tabs: Alerts, Addresses and Who is where.
3. An address entered there does nothing for a dispatcher until it is registered with the carrier and shows as validated.
4. Never test by dialling 9-1-1. Test calls go to 933, and they are off for your organization unless they have been turned on.

A test call to 9-1-1 ties up a real dispatcher who someone else may need at that moment.

Read more

• Emergency calling (9-1-1)Page
• QuestionsPage
• the Government of Quebec on how 911 service works in QuebecSource: Gouvernement du Québec

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