The Case under the GDPR for Video and Audio Recording in Commercial Spaces and Interactions: An Example of Fitting Legacy Systems and Practices into a Forward-Looking Compliance Regime

Daniel Corcoran, SVP, International General Counsel, Marchex, USA

This Paper considers how to square potentially the new General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR” or “Regulation”) requirements with the longstanding commercial practices of recording customers through video and audio means; this could include the recording of customers in shops and business locations and the recording of telephone communication for the purposes of transactions or customer service. This Paper does not consider the separate issues raised by government surveillance or separate wiretapping-style analysis that may need to accompany any privacy analysis. The GDPR analysis is not necessarily the only legal considerations to be made depending on the member state; however, this Paper considers this layer of the analysis as it may be applied as expected to be initially effective across the European Union in 2018.

Daniel is an international business and technology lawyer based in New York. Daniel’s practice is focused on complex business transactions, technology innovation, data and intellectual property strategies, and global product launches. Prior to his current in-house practice, Daniel worked for international law firms and was resident in offices in New York, Frankfurt and Sao Paulo. Daniel holds an undergraduate degree in German literature from Columbia College of Columbia University and a graduate law degree from Fordham University School of Law. He is certified by the International Association of Privacy Professionals with the CIPP/US and the CIPP/E.

Marchex is a leader in mobile advertising technology. Marchex operates one of the largest digital call platforms, focused on driving calls to advertisers and has developed sophisticated, patented analytics and data intelligence systems to optimize marketing return on investment and the consumer acquisition experience. Marchex products enable consumer intelligence for advanced advertising technology and social media clients with powerful cross-platform marketing programs. Marchex clients deploy this leading technology to drive new customer phone calls through a digital call marketplace (on a pay for call performance basis) and to analyze call-traffic sourced from thousands of existing campaign placements or keywords (by way of call tracking and call analytics). The robust technology enables call recording, sales conversion tracking by source of call, visual representation of call experience (CallDNA), reverse look-up on caller information, and call-scoring for a quality measure. This large-scale VoIP infrastructure enables billions of minutes of consumer calls over millions of phone numbers and connections. The technology touches individual consumers across large Fortune 500 clients and local businesses through major yellow page companies.