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Information Technology News IBM keeps unwarranted ears from call centre conversations
Information Technology News IBM keeps unwarranted ears from call centre conversations | IBM keeps unwarranted ears from call centre conversations |
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| by Stephen Withers | |
| Friday, 04 July 2008 | |
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Be that as it may, not only do we have to suffer the pain of calling, battling an IVR (interactive voice response) system and then often waiting on hold for some time, we then are asked to trust a complete stranger with our personal details while the entire conversation is almost always recorded. It's good to know that you can ask for your conversation to not be recorded if you don't want it to be. But recordings are there for a purpose, and consumers almost always allow them to proceed. They let companies check the quality, manner and knowledge of its call centre agents, and to review cases where they may be a dispute over what was said on the conversation. The thing is, when someone listens to the call recording to check whether the agent is doing a good job, or uses it in a training session as a good or bad example of work practices, are people listening to details of your private information in these sessions? Today, the likely answer is "yes" - but IBM is working to solve this problem. After all, even if the people listening to recorded calls for those training purposes that we’re always told about are all 'cleared' for that category of information, they don't need to hear your bank account number, date of birth or whatever, right? Right. One of the basic privacy principles is that data should only be used for the purpose for which it was collected, and even if you agree to call recording there's a case to be made that your consent does not extend to the general conversation to the exact details you provide. Surely you only gave them for the purposes of the actual transaction? So, what has IBM done to restore some privacy to recorded call centre conversations? Please read on to page 2. |
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