Essex County Fire & Rescue Service

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FOI / 3864 / 2018 - Call Recording

 

Thank you for your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I can confirm that Essex County Fire & Rescue Service does hold this information.

Initial Request:

1. Are Service Users or the general public allowed to audio-visually record meeting and calls with your staff? If so, do they require permission or are they permitted to do so covertly?

2. Do you have any guidance or policy for the public or service users to record calls when they speak to your staff

What is your organisations protocol on service users recording calls when they speak to your staff? Please provide a copy of your policy, procedure and guideline notes on this issue.

Or call centres. Do you Inform Users they can record. If the answer is no what is the reason for this please if so do send me a copy.

Are service users made aware of their right to record the encounter, if they choose to do so? Is this reflected in you policy document on the matter?

3. Does your organisation have an “Unacceptable Behaviour” policy? If so, please can you provide me with a copy?

If such a policy contains points of objectionable behaviour such as telephones calls being recorded by the caller due to them being not necessary or unwanted or needed, and furthermore the staff members may feel threatened or apprehensive, are you aware that denying users the right to record calls goes against the current UK laws.

4. Are your policies and procedures compliant with the public right to audio-visually record encounters with your staff, without their consent? If not, will you provide appropriate training for your staff so they are fully informed of the Public right to record?

5. What is our organisations current charging policy for Freedom of Information requests (FOI) or Subject Access Requests (SAR)? If charges are applied are concessions available for those on low income or students?

6. What is your organisations complaints policy? Please can you forward me a copy? Does your complaints procedure permit service users evidence such as covert call recordings to form part of the investigation?

Final Response:

Please see below the answers to your request.

1. Are Service Users or the general public allowed to audio-visually record meeting and calls with your staff? If so, do they require permission or are they permitted to do so covertly?

We have no way to stop anyone from recording calls into and out of Control from a Service User side. All calls into Service Control are recorded via our DiVos recording system provided by Frequentis as part of our ICCS provision.

2. Do you have any guidance or policy for the public or service users to record calls when they speak to your staff.

We currently do not have guidance or policy for the public or service users on recording calls when speaking to our staff.

What is your organisations protocol on service users recording calls when they speak to your staff? Please provide a copy of your policy, procedure and guideline notes on this issue.

We currently do not have policies, procedures or guidelines on service users recording calls.

Or call centres. Do you Inform Users they can record.

We do not inform service users that they cannot record calls.

If the answer is no what is the reason for this please if so do send me a copy.

This would time consuming when we are attempting to mobilise fire appliances as quickly as possible. 

Are service users made aware of their right to record the encounter, if they choose to do so? Is this reflected in you policy document on the matter?

We currently do not have a policy document in place on this issue.

 

3. Does your organisation have an “Unacceptable Behaviour” policy? If so, please can you provide me with a copy?

If such a policy contains points of objectionable behaviour such as telephones calls being recorded by the caller due to them being not necessary or unwanted or needed, and furthermore the staff members may feel threatened or apprehensive, are you aware that denying users the right to record calls goes against the current UK laws.

Our general Code of Conduct can be found here:

http://hr-od/_img/pics/pdf_1400148224.pdf    

4. Are your policies and procedures compliant with the public right to audio-visually record encounters with your staff, without their consent? If not, will you provide appropriate training for your staff so they are fully informed of the Public right to record?

We currently do not have policies and procedures in place on the public right to audio-visually record encounters with our staff. We will be looking into this and providing some education to relevant members of staff on this.

5. What is our organisations current charging policy for Freedom of Information requests (FOI) or Subject Access Requests (SAR)? If charges are applied are concessions available for those on low income or students?

The guidance we follow can be found here:

https://ico.org.uk/media/1635/fees_cost_of_compliance_exceeds_appropriate_limit.pdf   

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/right-of-access/            

6. What is your organisations complaints policy? Please can you forward me a copy? Does your complaints procedure permit service users evidence such as covert call recordings to form part of the investigation?

Please see attached document. Our complaints policy is currently being revised.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to apply for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of your original email and should be addressed to: Internal Review, Performance & Data Team, Kelvedon Park, Rivenhall, Witham, Essex CM8 3HB.


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