Call Recording & Consent Policy

1. Why this policy exists

LiveDial.ai answers inbound telephone calls on behalf of car detailing businesses. Those calls are recorded and transcribed so that the automated agent can quote accurately, so that call summaries can be delivered to the client business, and so that call quality can be reviewed and improved. Recording a telephone conversation is regulated by federal law and by the law of every state, and the rules are not uniform.

Two features of this business shape the approach taken in this policy:

• LiveDial operates the answering system on behalf of its client. The conversation is between a member of the public and the client’s business; LiveDial records it as the operator of that system.
• Neither LiveDial nor the client controls where the caller is physically located when they dial. A caller is often on a mobile number whose area code says nothing reliable about where they are standing.

Because caller location cannot be known at pickup, LiveDial does not vary its behavior by jurisdiction. Every call is announced as recorded, on every account, without exception. That single rule is set out in section 3, and everything else in this policy follows from it.

2. The legal framework

2.1 Federal baseline

The federal Wiretap Act (18 U.S.C. § 2511) permits recording a telephone call where at least one party to the communication has consented. Federal law is a floor, not a ceiling: states may and do impose stricter requirements.

2.2 State requirements

Most states follow the federal one-party standard. A minority require the consent of every party to the call, including (as of the date of this policy) California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan (treated as all-party as a matter of prudence), Montana (notification), Nevada (all-party for telephone calls), New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont (treated as all-party as a matter of prudence), and Washington.

Because LiveDial announces recording on every call regardless of jurisdiction, this list does not drive any configuration decision. It is maintained solely so that changes in state law can be monitored against the operating rule in section 3.

2.3 Which state’s law applies

Where the caller and the called party are in different states, courts have taken different approaches, and several have applied the law of the stricter jurisdiction. LiveDial’s universal announcement makes that question moot as a practical matter: whichever state’s law applies, notice is given on every call, and the call proceeds only if the caller chooses to continue.

3. The operating rule

3.1 The rule

• Every call handled by a LiveDial agent is announced as recorded, before any substantive conversation takes place.
• This is not configurable per client. Clients cannot opt out, cannot suppress the announcement, and cannot request a jurisdiction-limited variant. There is no exception for clients operating only in one-party consent states.
• The announcement is delivered by the agent itself, in the client’s brand voice, as the opening words of the call.

The practical consequence is that LiveDial meets or exceeds the notice requirement of every US jurisdiction on every call, and no per-account legal analysis is required before an account goes live.

3.2 The disclosure script

The operative script, used at the start of every call:

“Hi, you’ve reached [Business Name]. I’m the business’s automated assistant, and this call is recorded so we can get your quote right and for quality. How can I help?”

The disclosure is spoken first, before any greeting question or qualifying question. It is deliberately short — a long legal preamble causes callers to hang up — but it covers the three things that must be disclosed: that the assistant is automated, that the call is recorded, and the purposes of recording. The stated purposes (accurate quoting and quality) match the principal actual uses of the recording; the full list of uses is set out in the Privacy Policy, which is referenced from every client website.

3.3 What counts as consent

A caller who hears the announcement and continues the conversation has consented to the recording. Clear notice at the outset, followed by the caller’s decision to continue, is the consent mechanism used across the customer-service industry and is recognized as effective in all-party consent jurisdictions. No affirmative verbal acknowledgement is requested, because none is required where notice is clear, is given before any substantive conversation, and the caller remains free to object at any time.

3.4 If the caller asks whether they are speaking with a human

The agent answers truthfully. If a caller asks whether they are speaking with a person, a robot, or an AI, the agent confirms that it is an automated assistant and offers to arrange a call back from the business owner or to transfer the call where the client has configured an escalation number. The agent never claims to be human. This behavior is built into the agent template and covered by the standard test suite.

3.5 If the caller objects to recording

If a caller objects to being recorded at any point in the call, the agent must:

• Stop recording immediately and confirm out loud that recording has stopped.
• Continue to handle the call without recording, or transfer the call to the client’s escalation number.
• Delete any partial recording of that call within 24 hours, retaining only the fact of the call, its duration, and any booking made.

This path is built into the agent template and is included in the standard test suite that every client configuration passes before go-live.

4. Outbound calls

Outbound calling — speed-to-lead callbacks, quote follow-up and reactivation campaigns — carries a second and separate set of obligations beyond recording consent:

• The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and its implementing rules govern automated and prerecorded outbound calls. The Federal Communications Commission has confirmed that AI-generated voices are “artificial” voices under the TCPA, so an outbound call placed by a LiveDial agent requires the prior express consent of the called party — and prior express written consent where the call is telemarketing.
• Federal and state Do Not Call registries apply to marketing calls, and several states impose additional restrictions on automated outbound calling and on calling hours.

Accordingly, LiveDial applies the following rule: outbound calling is not enabled on any account until LiveDial has received and reviewed documentary evidence that the contacts to be called have given the consent required by applicable law. This is a condition of the feature, not merely a contractual promise by the client. The client’s consent obligations, and the evidence required, are set out in the Master Services Agreement and Terms of Service. Purchased, rented or scraped contact lists are never accepted.

Outbound calls are announced as recorded, in the same way as inbound calls.

5. Retention and access

5.1 Access controls

• Recordings and transcripts sit in infrastructure controlled by LiveDial, never under a client’s own vendor account.
• Access is limited to staff performing quality review, support, or agent tuning.
• Clients receive their own call data on request and automatically in the weekly report; clients never receive another client’s data.
• Call transcripts are treated as untrusted input. They are not used as instructions to any automated system that can take action.

6. What the client must do

These obligations appear in the Master Services Agreement and Terms of Service and are reproduced here so the operating team can check them at onboarding:

• Tell LiveDial every state in which the business operates or actively solicits customers, and notify LiveDial when that changes. This information is used for outbound calling compliance; it does not vary the recording announcement, which is universal.
• Confirm that any customer list supplied for outbound calling was collected with the consent required by law, and supply documentary evidence of that consent before outbound calling is enabled.
• Display a call recording notice on the business website and on any web form that captures a telephone number, with a link to LiveDial’s Privacy Policy.
• Never instruct LiveDial to suppress, shorten or condition the recording disclosure. LiveDial will not act on such an instruction.

7. Review of this policy

LiveDial reviews this policy when state recording or AI-disclosure law changes materially, and at least annually. The version and effective date at the top of this document identify the current text. Questions about this policy: privacy@livedial.ai, or LiveDial LLC, 30 N Gould St #55371, Sheridan, WY 82801, USA.