Google is Working on Native Call Recording For the Phone App, Code Suggests (androidpolice.com) 31
An anonymous reader shares a report: Google's Call Screening service has allowed you to record screened calls for quite some time, but many people have been asking for a native solution letting them save any phone conversation. It looks like Google is working on introducing this functionality to its Phone app. XDA Developers peeked at the code of the current Phone app beta version 43.0.289191107 and found that Google has already added a new layout, an icon, and more assets that hint at call recording through the application. Some strings also point to a new in-call button that should allow you to quickly start saving audio.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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The previous changes were good. I don't want a random app to be able to record call audio. I want that super locked down. The best way here is to have it a feature of the call app, provided by a trusted party (the OEM) and not accessible via anything else. If I want an app to post process it, I can do it on the file afterwards.
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Yup.
I remember when there were a bunch of apps that just worked.
Then they locked shit down and the only way apps could work was by recording from the regular mic and prompting you to turn on speaker phone.
Then they fucked shit up and I don't think even that works anymore on newer Android devices unless the OEM phone call "app" specifically allows it.
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We already had this
No, we did not. I was working on an audio recording app back in 2012 and discovered that there were no ways to implement it. That was way back before any serious "root" restrictions.
The main reason was that many phones handled audio path directly in baseband hardware, with the main Android code simply setting up the routing. In case of Galaxy S it even used good old ALSA interface for this.
I guess now that Google consolidated the ecosystem, they can request phone makers to provide an audio path that goes
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Then you were an idiot in 2012. Back then, plenty of apps worked. Shortly after, some apps worked, but quality was shit because they resorted to recording from the regular mic, and you had to turn speaker phone on for it to pick up the incoming audio.
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Then you were an idiot in 2012. Back then, plenty of apps worked.
No, they did not. They were all using the microphone to record the sound in parallel to the conversation. This worked with varying degrees of awfulness on different models.
Re: They take it away and now give us a watered do (Score:2)
No, there was an AudioServer interface (trying to remember the name, something like call_in_out) specifically for apps to record calls that was native to AOSP, but several OEMs, Google included on their Nexus/Pixel phones, removed that at build time so it wasn't accessible on many phones. Google only removed this from AOSP in version 9. For most people in the US, nothing would have changed. Some OEMs, like Nokia, left that intact and pretty much every call recorder app worked on them.
Google will probably st
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I'm not sure if it's a felony to record a call without someone's knowledge but it's not admissible in court unless both parties know they are being recorded.
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I'm not sure if it's a felony to record a call without someone's knowledge
It depends on the state.
In California, recording without the consent of all parties is a felony and can get you up to three years in prison.
In other states, it is completely legal. You only need the knowledge/consent of one party in the conversation.
Re:There is an app for that. (Score:5, Informative)
In other states, it is completely legal. You only need the knowledge/consent of one party in the conversation.
I worded this poorly. It should say "In SOME other states ...."
These states require the consent of all parties to a conversation (as of Jan 2019):
California
Connecticut
Florida
Hawaii
Illinois
Maryland
Massachusetts
Montana
New Hampshire
Pennsylvania
Washington
Federal law requires the consent of at least one party. So at least one party must consent in all states.
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Seems like this would only apply to the location of the receiving party.
If I'm in Georgia, I'm going to record you if you call me. If I call YOU, then I guess it matters what state YOU are in...or maybe the state your NUMBER is in (area code?).
I hope the area code is the defining factor here because there's no way to know the physical location of a cell phone you're calling.
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Seems like this would only apply to the location of the receiving party.
If I'm in Georgia, I'm going to record you if you call me. If I call YOU, then I guess it matters what state YOU are in...or maybe the state your NUMBER is in (area code?).
I hope the area code is the defining factor here because there's no way to know the physical location of a cell phone you're calling.
Actually, I think it depends on the location of the person doing the recording. If you are in a two-party jurisdiction and record a call without the other party's consent, you care clearly committing a crime according to the laws of your jurisdiction.
It's a little less clear if the person doing the recording is in the one-party state and the other is in the two-party state. However, the California Supreme Court, at least, believes [mofo.com] that California can go after recordings of California residents made by pe
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Maybe it would add the "beep" to the conversation when it is active?
Also, how is the law applied? If a resident of a state forbids recording without both party consent does the person have to physically be in the state during the call? Or is it just based on the fact that the area code/prefix is registered within the state?
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As I posted above, my Motorola dumbphone from the early 2000s had the ability to record phone calls as well as just any brief voice note. It did beep periodically to let the other party know they're being recorded.
It's really a good feature and it's absolutley bizarre that this is something we had literally 20 years ago but is now a new fancy thing Google's been trying to implement. I didn't use it too often but it's been useful to record e.g. directions to the hosue or a list of stuff to buy so you don't h
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I was wondering this as well.
Technically speaking, I think it would have to be based on the physical location of the person when they press the button. I suppose the person's state of citizenship might matter too.
Assume that I, a citizen of New York, am vacationing in Cape Cod (in Mass., a two-party-consent state). I'm lounging on the beach, delicious craft brew in hand, when my mobile phone rings. I don't know why I brought the damn thing with me. I cuss once, put my beer down, and answer the phone.
Q:
It's normally perfectly legal (Score:4, Interesting)
Except it's NOT a felony. Not even a misdemeanor, in most cases.
It's perfectly legal to record your calls, generally.
It's legal under federal law.
It's 100% legal under the laws of 39 states.
In a few states, such as Delaware, there are situations in which it would be illegal. In Delaware, for example, if you're recording the call for the purpose of committing some other crime, then the recording becomes illegal. It's fine to record your calls if you're not using rhe recording to commit another crime.
Possibly the strictest state is California, where it is a misdemeanor IF:
1. You don't have consent
2. the other party reasonably considered it a confidential conversation (not a sales call, etc)
3. The other party isn't harassing you or subject to a restraining order
4. It's not authorized by the court (not uncommon in court cases for the court to authorize a recording)
Etc
So even in California it's perfectly legal in many cases, including if you say "instead of taking notes, I'm just going to record this, okay?"
Hopefully... (Score:2)
... they add a method with an appropriate permission to record any in/out stream from any app. I would even take something that couldn't access output from DRM'd sources.
It's asinine to just add this functionality to Phone, when have the time these day's i'm using one of several VOIP apps anyway.
Background for those on iPhone: Android has had mixed success with voice recorder apps. Historically they have had to implement multiple different ways to capture the mic/speaker/bluetooth streams, with some techniq
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Around 4.0 or so this was doable by recording and mixing together incoming audio and microphone audio. This was removed in 9.0.
I'm still on 8.1 specifically because I need this function. I have an open source app from f-droid that sits in the background and records every call made as an .ogg file. 9.0 breaks it.
Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Soon my Android phone will be almost as advanced as my Motorola from 1999!
So they can data mine/sell what you are saying... (Score:1)
Thanks but no thanks.
Prank calls (Score:2)
Some do and some don't (Score:2)
Last summer I purchased an Xaiomi Redmi Note 7 unlocked smartphone from Amazon. It included a phone recorder that worked perfectly. As fate would have it I changed service providers and got a Samsung Galaxy S10 in October. It didn't have a phone recorder with the Android 9.0 Pie so I installed Cube ACR, which worked perfectly until the middle of December, when Samsung updated the 9.0 Pie to Android 10, which killed the ability to record the other side of a phone conversation. Fixes by Cube ACR work only
AudioRecorder XS for iOS (Score:2)
Been around since at least iOS 8. If you're jailbroken this app will record your calls directly onto your phone. If your state requires you notifying the other party, there's a toggle so they will be informed the call is being recorded. Includes simple instructions on how to get the audio recordings onto your computer. One time fee of $3.99. (No, I have nothing to do with the creation or distribution of this app.)