Understanding recording consent

Tech admin

 Any Gong plan*

Call recording is subject to various consent laws that differ by location and industry. Before recording any calls, you must understand and comply with:

• The consent laws in your location

• The consent laws in your customer's location

• Any additional regulations specific to your industry

Many jurisdictions require "two-party" or "all-party" consent, meaning everyone on the call must be notified that the call is being recorded. Some may require everyone to actively agree to being recorded. Other locations follow "one-party" consent rules, where only one participant needs to be aware of the recording. Some key points to consider:

• If your customer is in a different state or country from you, typically the stricter consent law applies

• Consent requirements may be different for video vs audio recording

• Some industries (like healthcare or financial services) have additional recording regulations

• International calls may be subject to multiple jurisdictions' requirements

Ways to get consent to record web conference calls

Gong provides these methods for notifying and getting consent from customers to record web conference calls. They are:

• A consent page hosted by Gong that can be personalized and used to obtain consent to record a web conference call.
  

• An audio prompt, played when participants join a web conference call, letting them know the call is being recorded.

• Pre-call emails sent 10 minutes ahead of the scheduled call reminding them about the call and that it’s recorded.

Consent with native Zoom recording

When setting up web conference calls with the native Zoom recorder, Zoom’s recording disclaimer can be customized and used to inform and get consent to record.

Consent with telephony calls

When making calls with integrated telephony systems, you must verbally inform your customers that the call is being recorded. When calling with the Gong mobile app, see Enable your team to use the Gong dialer from mobile and Gong Connect: data protection & privacy.

Monitor consent in telephony calls

Although company policy may state that customers must verbally give consent to being recorded, it can be difficult to ensure that reps are following the policy. Use the Recording consent smart tracker to track calls where consent wasn’t given. Those calls can then be deleted from Gong.

Managing consent requirements with consent profiles

As your consent requirements often vary between different regions and teams, it may be necessary to have different consent settings for different teams.

Consent profiles enable defining multiple methods for getting consent across your organization. This ensures each team has predefined mechanisms for obtaining consent and removes the need for teams to verify they are complying with their specific regulatory requirements.

• Enable the consent page for different providers, for example, where one team uses Zoom and another uses Google Meet

• Define whether participants can opt out of the recording but stay on the call or whether they must consent to being recorded in order to stay on the call.

• Enable or enforce the use of the consent page

• Customize the consent page logo, company name and texts.

• Set up different consent pages for different use-cases, for example if your company has subsidiaries.

• Play a language-specific audio prompt for each participant on calls hosted by a particular team

• Send the pre-call email in different languages for calls hosted by different teams

What you can set in a consent profile

The consent profile includes settings that are applied to team members with that consent profile. Define the consent page, audio prompt, and the pre-call email settings.

Consent page settings

Define how the consent page should be displayed.

Web conferencing provider

Set the web conferencing provider for the consent profile. Supported providers are:

• Zoom

• Google Meet

• WebEx

• Microsoft Teams

• GoToMeeting

• Amazon Chime

• RingCentral Meetings

• RingCentral Video

• join.me

• Uber Conference

• Appointlet

The settings available may differ for each provider, as integrations with some providers may include features not supported with a different provider. For example, choosing between dynamic and static meeting links.

Enable or enforce the consent page

Enforcing the consent page means that if a participant joins the meeting without giving consent to recording in the consent page, the call won’t be imported to Gong.

Bypassing the consent page can be done by, for example:

• Adding a meeting link which won’t redirect to the consent page to the meeting description

• Generating the meeting link without using the Gong add-on for Google or Outlook

Links to the consent page

The link to the meeting is redirected to display the consent page so that participants can consent to being recorded as they enter the meeting. Gong supports the following types of links:

• Dynamic link: Dynamic links are links that are generated per meeting. A participant has to have the meeting link in order to join the meeting. This is considered the most secure method of preventing people not invited to the meeting from joining. You must install the Gong calendar add-on for Google or Microsoft Outlook to schedule meetings with a dynamic link.

• Personal meeting room: Static links are links that don’t change and open in the meeting owners personal meeting room. Each meeting for a specific person will have the same link. A personal meeting room is a permanent, dedicated virtual meeting space with a fixed URL/meeting ID assigned to a specific user, allowing them to host meetings without creating new meeting links each time. Different web conference providers refer to this with different terms.

Dynamic links are available for the Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex integrations. For other web providers, all meeting links are static.

Dynamic links

Advantages of dynamic links:

• The most secure method of ensuring that only people invited to the meeting can join.

• No risk of overlapping meetings

• A new recording is started for each meeting

• Dial-in information includes informing participants how they can give consent before connecting to the meeting by phone

Disadvantages of dynamic links:

• You cannot use personal meeting rooms as they can only be opened with a static link

• Scheduling meetings with tools such as Calendly are not supported

• If you schedule meetings for other people, you can’t use a dynamic link

Static links

Static links are links to a team member’s personal meeting room, which can be found in the web conferencing provider’s app. Gong can automatically display the consent page before redirecting to the personal meeting room for the following web conferencing providers:

• GoToMeeting

• Webex

• Zoom

For all other supported web conferencing providers, your team members must add their personal meeting room link to their profile page. Once they have done this, Gong can display the consent page before opening the personal meeting room for that provider. Static links contain a unique token to reduce the risk of call intrusions.

Advantages of static links:

• You can schedule meetings for other people, for example, an SDR can schedule a call for an AE

• Your org likes to schedule meetings in personal meeting rooms

• You use scheduling tools such as Calendly to schedule meetings

Disadvantages of static links:

• With back-to-back meetings, the host must control admission to the meeting to avoid participants “bumping into” one another as one meeting ends and another begins, and there’s the risk that recordings will overlap.

• For certain providers, team members must manually add their personal meeting room link to their profile to display the consent page. Each personal meeting room link needs to be associated with the Gong consent page in order to make sure meeting participants see the consent page.

• Requires additional configuration.

• Dial-in information is not supported.

Let the host decide

Meeting hosts decide whether to set up meetings using a dynamic or static meeting link. The host can either manually copy their static link to their personal meeting room into the meeting invite, or they can use the Gong calendar add-in to generate a dynamic link. This option allows the meeting host to choose the meeting link that most suits that specific meeting.

Opt out of being recorded

Define whether participants can opt out of the recording but stay on the call or whether they must consent to being recorded in order to stay on the call.

The opt-out option is available for these web conferencing systems:

It’s possible to monitor how many participants opt-out of being recorded using the Call status report.

Localize the consent page

Gong's consent page can be localized to the participant’s native language when their browser is set to any of the supported languages. The default language is English.

Viewing the consent page in a physical meeting room

When a meeting starts from a meeting room system, the consent page isn’t displayed, and participants can’t consent to being recorded. To get consent, start the meeting from your laptop first and then add the meeting room. It’s recommended to announce at the beginning of the meeting that it is being recorded.

Audio prompt

The audio prompt is played at the start of the call, and settings include whether to play the audio prompt for each participant or only once, the language of the audio prompt and the voice and text used.

There is also an option not to play the audio prompt if the participant consented to the recording via the consent page.

Pre-call email

An automated email can be configured to be sent 10 minutes before the meeting is scheduled to take place. The email is sent from the Gong email service. The subject and body of the email can be customized as well as the company logo and privacy policy. The email includes a section informing the participant that the meeting will be recorded, and this text cannot be removed or edited.

Gong’s app for the Calendar

Gong provides an app for Google Workspace and Outlook 365 which automates adding a link to a meeting which ensures the consent page will be opened before the meeting starts. This app is required if you want to use dynamic links. For static links, the add-on retrieves the static link defined in the team member’s profile and adds it to the meeting. For details on how to install the app, see Install the Gong calendar add-on.

Consent with the Gong assistant

All settings in the consent profile are applied to a call that the Gong assistant is invited to.

*The features available to you depend on your company’s plan and your assigned seats.