Keeping compliant with data protection laws, such as the GDPR, PCI DSS, or information security standards like ISO 27001, requires not only securing data effectively, but also deleting the data when you no longer have a legitimate purpose to store it. With Unified Call Recording from Dubber, you can ensure that recorded calls comply with data retention periods, and are secured effectively. The latest update to be released to the Dubber platform includes the option to set a retention period for recordings, allowing companies to comply with data protection legislation more easily.

Why do I need data retention periods?

The retention period is the length of time you store customer and supplier records for business or compliance purposes before the data is deleted. Erasign data after it is no longer required is important as it reduces the risk of keeping unnecessary, inaccurate, or out of date information.

While the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) doesn’t set out any specific minimum or maximum periods for keeping customer and supplier data, it does state that you must keep data no longer than is necessary for the purpose you obtained it for.

If you process debit or credit card information, you may be subject to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

Similarly, if you intend to comply with ISO 27001, the international standard that describes best practice for information security, you must take note of its requirements. These compliance requirements will dictate what information must be included in your information security policy and the rules you should follow. A simple data retention policy will address: the types of information the policy covers, how long you are entitled to keep the information, and what you should do with data when you no longer have a legitimate purpose to store it.

What are data retention best practices?

• You must not keep personal data for longer than necessary
• You need to be able to justify how long you store personal data. This will depend on why you are storing the data
• You should have a data retention policy that sets standard retention periods, in order to comply with documentation requirements
• You should periodically review the data you hold, and delete or anonymize it when no longer required
• In some jurisdictions, individuals have a right to erasure and you should be ready to delete data on request
• Personal data should only be retained for longer periods if it is for public interest archiving, scientific or historical research, or statistical purposes

How do I set a data retention period?

Data protection regulations around the world require enterprises to ensure that personal data from their consumers is deleted after a specified period. These requirements will vary by region and industry. With retention periods, businesses can customise their plan so that recordings are deleted according to their exact compliance needs. Retention periods can be altered as required so that organisations can adapt to changing regulations.

While your voice data is stored within the Dubber platform, you can be sure that the security measures will protect against any data breaches. The platform offers a level of encryption and reliability not seen in on-premise storage, with significantly reduced risk of damage, theft, or tampering. Alternative approaches to call recording such as in-app recording means a lack of control over who has recorded calls, where they are stored, and who has access to the voice data. Enterprises must ensure that their information security policy protects against this kind of risky behaviour.

What about complying with financial services regulations?

Legislation such as MiFID II in the EU requires financial services organisations to record calls containing financial advice, but these must be deleted after 5 or 7 years, depending on the country. With the new retention periods feature, financial institutions can set a maximum length of time for recorded calls to be stored within the Dubber platform. Once this period has been reached, these recordings and their associated AI data will automatically be deleted.

Do I need a special plan?

Retention periods are available as standard on our Call Dub and Dubber AI plans, at no additional cost, and are enabled as default within account settings. These services are both all inclusive, with a full range of recording features and unlimited storage, retention and minutes per month: ensuring no worries about running out of space. Dubber AI comes with added voice AI functionality, including transcription, sentiment and tone analysis, and customisable automated alerts.

To find out more about how Dubber’s Unified Call Recording is helping businesses meet their compliance requirements, click here to chat to one of our team.

In a world that is increasingly reliant on a workforce that can work anytime, anywhere, businesses are looking for increased connectivity through innovations in wired and wireless solutions. Enter fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), where calls can be seamlessly transferred from fixed to mobile devices and vice versa. Read an in-depth guide to FMC in our white paper.

Although FMC is by no means new, the infrastructure and investment required means it has been slow to realise. But with advancing technology, the idea of combining offerings into one bundle for customers is beginning to gain traction. Could 2020 see developments in converged offerings?

What does FMC mean for businesses?

The growing popularity of FMC is the result of both customer needs and networks looking to stay ahead of the competition and retain customers with more powerful, personalised services.

FMC solutions create a union between wired and wireless technologies and allow calls to continue without dropping even as the user moves from location to location and between devices. FMC also enables better reachability, so that customer-facing employees can be reached on the first try — whether they are in the office or out on the road. Similarly, single-number reach allows customers and clients to contact a business on one number that redirects calls to available contacts, through cloud-based communications technology.

Enterprises that deploy solutions that unify fixed and mobile communications will see increased productivity.

What does FMC mean for telecommunications service providers?

Telecommunications service providers have already begun to buy into the concept and are benefitting from being early adopters of the technology. By bundling their fixed and mobile services, service providers are likely to reduce customer churn as they are able to offer cheaper packages, while increasing average revenue per user.

These simplified communication solutions also make it easy for providers to offer value-added services like cloud-based call recording from one single, unified portal without requiring any up-front investment, hardware or lengthy setup processes.

By moving to the cloud, telecommunications service providers can combine wired and wireless communications in one solution, offering greater flexibility, ease of use, and reduced IT and network costs for providers and their users.

Get in touch to find out more about how Dubber call recording and voice AI can work with FMC solutions.

Dubber are committed to providing the highest levels of security for our native cloud platform, as well as offering unlimited scalability, and rapid deployment to meet and exceed the expectations of our clients with no CapEx. Read on to find out the ways in which we maintain our high standards of security.

Cloud security

We chose to build our products and services in the cloud, specifically to leverage the levels of security that are only made possible through the cloud. Security is maintained at every stage of the call capture and data processing journey, with AES-256 encryption protecting recordings and multiple data storage sites mitigating any disaster recovery concerns.

Safe and secure sharing

The security of our platform is just one aspect that we considered when creating our solution. We also wanted to ensure that data was protected while still maintaining accessibility for businesses and individuals. Unlocking the valuable data stored in phone calls is one of the main reasons that customers choose Dubber solutions, but it is important to make sure that the owners of this data are protected. We created teams and permissions settings that restrict access to recordings, and a unique sharing function that does not share files with third parties but instead emails a non-downloadable link that expires for added security.

Local storage myths busted

Unfortunately, security is often a concern that prevents businesses from moving to the cloud. In reality, moving storage off-premise means organisations immediately mitigate the risk of having vulnerable data on-site. With data centres all over the world, we can offer a variety of options for organisations who require specific storage locations for their data. These storage centres also offer data sovereignty, so data is only stored in one geographic location. Within each location, data is written to multiple data centres for geographic redundancy: preventing data loss in the event that a data centre is compromised. These data centres guarantee availability of every single recorded call at any time, allowing quick and easy access to data for every customer.

Dubber’s cloud storage employs the latest in encryption technology to offer the highest protection, which is managed by a team of experts at a level that legacy solutions cannot compete with. Any data stored within Dubber is only stored by us, and not owned by us. Data rights are retained by the owners of the data, Dubber merely offer solutions that capture, process, and store data.

We are ISO certified

Dubber is ISO 27001 compliant. ISO 27001 is the globally recognised and respected standard for information security management systems (ISMS). In order to gain certification, an organisation must develop and implement a rigorous security management programme: including an ISMS. Organisations must systematically evaluate information security risks, taking the impact of security threats and vulnerabilities into consideration. Any security risks must be addressed with a comprehensive suite of information security controls. An audit and compliance management process must be implemented to ensure ongoing protection.

This achievement is an assurance that Dubber’s data security processes are effective at every level of our organisation. The Dubber core principle is one of agile and continuous improvement and this extends to our data security commitment.

Download our ISO certificate here.

How we protect data

• Establishing, maintaining, monitoring, reviewing, auditing and continually improving our ISMS
• Establishing, reviewing and communicating our information security objectives and performance measures
• Committing to satisfy business, legal, and regulatory and contractual security obligations
• Committing to continual improvement of our ISMS by seeking feedback from clients, staff, and through internal and external audits
• Ensuring that the ISMS is communicated with every member of the Dubber team

Have any questions about our security? Drop us a line.

Organisations who download their recorded calls to local storage are putting valuable data at risk of damage, theft, or tampering. Dubber are committed to providing a secure and reliable call recording platform to meet and exceed the expectations of our customers: at an affordable monthly cost, with zero CapEx.

Why shouldn’t you download your calls?

There are four main risks associated with downloading recorded calls to local storage:

• Security: Recorded calls downloaded to local storage are much more vulnerable to theft, damage, or tampering. Having only one on-premise server means fire or power shortages could destroy all recordings.
• Access: Storing data locally can be detrimental to team members who need to access recordings, as it is often more difficult to manage and access recordings outside of a dedicated recording platform.
• Cost: Using and maintaining on-premise storage solutions is expensive: both to set up and maintain on a day-to-day basis. Organisations need to either employ trained staff members, or to engage expensive third parties to manage the solutions. As incidents can occur at any time, this could result in call-out charges.
• No audit trail: With local storage there is no audit trail. Users can listen, share, or delete recordings with no record of their actions.

Protect against risk with secure cloud storage

Utilising Dubber’s cloud solution, organisations immediately mitigate the risk of having vulnerable data on-site. The Dubber solution also employs the latest in encryption technology to offer the highest protection, which is managed by a team of experts at a level that legacy solutions cannot compete with.

Instant access to every call

Cloud storage with Dubber guarantees the availability of every single recorded call at any time, allowing quick and easy access to data for every customer. Storing calls with Dubber also allows users to retrieve calls instantly with advanced elastic search functionality that trawls every call, no matter when it was recorded. Cloud storage also facilitates ease of use for remote workers or those based in different offices. With all recorded calls available to access from any location, staff working across different locations can continue to playback recordings and use voice data without being in the office.

Consistent costs with no surprises

The costly management and staff resources associated with local storage can all be avoided with long-term storage with Dubber. All of the setup, management, and ongoing maintenance is covered by Dubber, meaning that costs stay the same, no matter what. The monthly subscription fee is the only expense, and there are no worries about unexpected costs in the future. Dubber’s SaaS model keeps costs down to a low monthly payment, rather than requiring CapEx that can be difficult when obtaining budget allowances.

Detailed audit trails

Access to calls is restricted by permissions structures to prevent unauthorised access or sharing of calls or data, and all activity is tracked and timestamped in order to create comprehensive audit trails. A full audit is collected for any transaction within the Dubber platform. All activity, such as users listening to, sharing, and deleting recordings, is monitored and logged within the platform. This logging provides both real-time monitoring of the platform and its status.

Offer your customers cost-effective storage from Dubber

Join Dubber and offer your customers long-term, secure cloud storage for their recorded calls. With no restrictions of storage space, no requirements of on-premise equipment, and instant access to all recorded calls, Dubber’s solution is second to none. What this offers is the opportunity to safely store huge amounts of valuable data, worth much more than marginal savings on a call recording package that might allow only 90 days of storage.

Get in touch to find out more about the benefits of long-term storage with Dubber.

How much personal data did you share today? Within a digital society, where web browsers sometimes know more about us than our friends, security is more important than ever. For businesses who process personal data from their consumers, ensuring they protect this information is vital.

The consequences of poor security

Security breaches are big news: the headlines that result from data hacks can be disastrous for an organisation’s reputation. Consumer relationships with brands are built on trust and customers need to feel that their data is safe, otherwise they are likely to look for alternatives.

In order to help protect consumer data, the EU have enacted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to set a standard for businesses to adhere to when dealing with the management and storage of customer data. Failure to comply with the data protection requirements of this regulation can result in fines of up to €20m or 4% of annual turnover for the prior year, whichever is higher. Read our post on how the GDPR will affect call recording for more information.

In order to comply with the GDPR, and to ensure that their customers feel that their data is secure, businesses need to examine their data storage. In the past many organisations saw on-site storage as the best option, but the rise of the cloud has shown the benefits of digital transformation and the advantages of cloud storage over on-premise solutions.

What are the risks of storing calls on-premise?

Recorded calls downloaded to local storage are much more vulnerable to theft, damage, or tampering. Having only one on-premise server means fire or power shortages could destroy all recordings. With local storage there is no audit trail. Users can listen, share, or delete recordings with no record of their actions.

With a cloud storage solution from Dubber, not only are calls more secure but there are many other advantages over on-site solutions. The cloud allows users to have convenient access to information held within phone calls — anytime, anywhere. This access is managed through strict security permissions that are allocated by designated admin users, and a full audit trail can be traced. Colleagues can collaborate from across locations, and workers are no longer tied to their desks.

Dubber’s security

Recorded calls are not only a valuable source of insight, for some businesses they make the difference between compliance and non compliance. That’s why at Dubber we have put security at the forefront of every stage of the recording process.

Simple and secure access: we ensure that users can easily and securely log in to view calls, but only with strong passwords. With strict teams and permissions settings, calls cannot be accessed by unauthorised personnel.

Single sign-on: the Dubber portal can now be accessed with single sign-on, allowing users to authenticate themselves using third-party credentials.

Sophisticated security and encryption: recorded calls are encrypted using AES-256 at every stage of the recording process.

Industry-leading security standards: Dubber is ISO 27001 compliant. Download our ISO certificate here.

ISO 27001 is an international standard for information security, which provides a framework for the information security management system (ISMS) within an organisation. Like Dubber, ISO 27001 is all about constant improvement, and encourages a system that works to constantly optimise itself.

In order to gain certification, we developed and implemented a rigorous security management programme, including an ISMS. This management system went through a rigorous auditing process that thoroughly examined our approach to information security and the controls we have put in place. We were able to achieve this by establishing an ISMS leadership team, comprising of senior management, and an InfoSec lead to champion and to manage this within Dubber. We engaged InfoSec consultant QMIS in the early stages of the initiative and we leveraged the ISMS.online tool to enable us to centrally manage our ISMS, and to make ongoing governance easier for us in the long term. In order to receive our certificate, we worked with these cloud security specialists and were put through a rigorous auditing process that thoroughly examined the information security management and controls we have put in place.

“Our ISO 27001 certification is an important indication of our dedication to protecting the information handled by Dubber. Our approach to compliance and security has always been proactive and rooted in continuous improvement, and this certification shows our dedication and long-term commitment to data protection.”

— James Slaney, Dubber Head of Product

The key principles

The three tenets of an ISO 27001 compliant ISMS are:

• Confidentiality: ensuring access to information is restricted to certain authorised individuals
• Integrity: ensuring that information processing methods are consistently accurate and thorough
• Availability: making access to information and assets available to authorised individuals

How we protect data

Here are some of the ways we at Dubber are continually working to protect the data we process both on our platform and throughout our organisation:

• Establishing, maintaining, monitoring, reviewing, auditing and continually improving our ISMS
• Establishing, reviewing and communicating our information security objectives and performance measures
• Committing to satisfy business, legal, and regulatory and contractual security obligations
• Committing to continual improvement of our ISMS by seeking feedback from clients, staff, and through internal and external audits
• Ensuring that the ISMS is communicated with every member of the Dubber team

To learn more about Dubber security, you can download our white paper, or get in touch with one of our team.

The deadline for compliance with MiFID II regulations is upon us and the time to adapt to the new rules is now. This extension of MiFID legislation requires any company or employee to record all calls, across mobile and fixed lines, that include financial advice that could lead to a trade. More regulation shouldn’t mean doom and gloom: smart organisations will see these changes as an opportunity to set themselves apart from their competitors with an honest and trustworthy approach to trading and financial advice.

Compliance is an opportunity, not a burden

With technological advances, businesses have the opportunity to make huge improvements in the way they work and the enforcement of MiFID II regulations are the perfect cue to start. By utilising cloud technology to meet the requirements of the new legislation, financial organisations can turn these regulations to their advantage to create value for their business: at an affordable cost, and with no disruption to their existing processes.

Looking beyond the necessary steps required for MiFID II compliance, financial organisations can actually improve their offering and beat the competition by taking advantage of new opportunities. The benefits of a proactive approach to compliance include:

• Improvements in business and customer service practices
• Setting a higher bar for competitors puts businesses ahead of the game
• Gaining a reputation for best-in-class practice
• An opportunity for new technologies to harness the true value of recorded data
• Risk identification and management

Intelligent call recording goes beyond compliance

By deploying call recording for compliance, organisations can also take advantage of the added benefits that can be accessed. Dubber’s call recording is available with the added intelligence of Zoe: a sophisticated suite of speech analytics tools that can help businesses unlock the data held within their voice calls.

Identifying issues and opportunities

Speech intelligence can be instantly added to Dubber’s cloud call recording, allowing organisations to turn MiFID II compliance to their advantage. Zoe can help businesses to analyse their working practices — identifying issues that can be addressed as well as opportunities for development.

Risk management

With Zoe’s Smart Search functionality, recorded calls company-wide can be searched instantly, no matter the size of the organisation. Keywords associated with financial risk can be identified, highlighting conversations that might contain issues. This kind of monitoring promotes a reassuring environment for the consumer.

A competitive advantage

The aim of the MiFID II legislation is for consumers to regain trust in the financial industry, and financial organisations should jump at the chance to showcase how their company goes above and beyond their competitors. By setting a higher bar for financial practice, organisations can get ahead of the game.

A proactive approach to MiFID II regulations

Compliance with regulations shouldn’t be a reactionary game, with organisations playing catch up to attain the minimum requirements to meet regulations. Those who will lead the market will be those who proactively consider how to provide best-in-class practices that offer a better experience for their customers. With MiFID II following so closely behind the original MIFID legislation, MiFID III can’t be too far behind. By taking a proactive approach to customer service and business development, organisations can use technology to their advantage to stay ahead of the game.

The time to adapt to the new MiFID II rules is now. Together with unified telecom services provider Simetric, Dubber has the solution to help financial services organisations comply with the expanded regulations of MiFID II.

Delivered through a SIM card, this advanced communications solution gives users the ability to capture all of their mobile conversations as well as their fixed line calls – a key component of MiFID II compliance. The regulations require all conversations that result or might result in transactions to be recorded, and includes equipment provided to, or authorised for the use of, employees and contractors of the firm – mobile phones being a key example of this clause. This new service will allow users to have a single number across their mobile and fixed line platforms, with Dubber communication capture available across all of their devices.

As MiFID II regulations have extended their coverage to include independent financial advisors, a call-recording solution that can be implemented quickly and easily through a SIM card is an ideal solution. Dubber + Simetric’s call recording solution is cloud-based, enabling users to deploy the service rapidly.

An extra feature of this advanced communications solution is Zoe, Dubber’s powerful speech intelligence suite, which enables users to search through their calls and analyse the voice data that has been captured. Calls related to trades can be quickly located — a crucial component of MiFID II compliance — using a variety of search criteria, but the power of Zoe doesn’t stop there. Zoe’s capabilities are developing every day, and new functionality will allow users to gain valuable insights in a variety of ways from their conversations.

At a time when organisations must be seen to be taking compliance seriously, implementing a comprehensive solution that records communications across devices is an ideal way to ensure your firm is ready for MiFID II. Not only will the worry of compliance be lifted, but consolidating your conversations and using one number for all communications will streamline your workflow.