Smartphones Have Ears

So to speak. Here’s a piece from Business Insider that discusses how employees are using smartphones to record office communications. Employees may record an interaction with a supervisor to support a wrongful termination suit. In other cases, the recording may help establish a sexual harassment suit. You can probably think of other purposes. As the article points out, 38 states (and federal law) have a “single consent” rule. Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana are all single consent rule states. If only one person consents to the recording, it’s okay to record it. And the person doing the recording can be the one giving the consent. In the other 12 states, all parties to the conversation have to consent to the recording. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to do it even if you’re in a single consent state. For example, it’s possible that your employer has a policy that forbids surreptious recording. Better check the employee manual. And given the increasing presence of smartphones in the workplace, it’s likely that more and more employers will institute that kind of policy if they haven’t already.