Blog · Trust and etiquette
Who can read your AI's call transcripts?
On our line: you, the assistant you've connected, and anyone you deliberately share a call with. Not our staff. Here's the full picture, and what to ask any provider.
By the CosVoice team · · 5 minute read
The short answer
If an AI answers and makes your phone calls, its transcripts are a record of your life. The plumber's quote. Your kid's school. The restaurant you like and who you went with. So who gets to read them?
On a CosVoice line, you do. So does the assistant you've connected, if you've connected one, because it needs to know what happened in order to act on it. And anyone you choose to share a particular call with can see that call. Our staff don't read your calls. Call content is sealed to your line, and your calls are never used to train models.
What gets stored
The written call. After every call the line produces a summary, the outcome, the details that were exchanged (names, amounts, dates, reference numbers, the next step) and a transcript. They're kept so you can read them later and look back through your history.
Say a contractor rings back with a quote while you're on a job. What's kept is the text of that conversation and the note made from it: the price, what it covers, the start date, how long the quote holds.
Texts sent to the line and emails sent to its address are saved on the line as well, and they sit in the same history as the calls.
What doesn't
Audio. We keep the written call and not the sound of it. There's no recording of your contractor's voice, or yours, held on your account.
That was deliberate. A transcript tells you what was said. A recording carries a lot more: a voice, a mood, the background noise of somebody's kitchen. Most of the time you need the first and have no use for the second, so we don't hold on to it.
It is a trade, and you should know that going in. You can't go back and listen. If you need to hear how something was said, a written record won't give you that. We've written about the consent side of recording in call recording consent: the basics.
What 'sealed to your line' means for you
In plain terms, what your line hears stays with your line. Every record is scoped to it, and our staff do not read your call content.
We're not going to describe the machinery here. A blog post is the wrong place for it, and you shouldn't take a blog post's word for it anyway. The trust page and the privacy policy it links to are the documents to hold us to.
Calls and model training
Your calls are never used to train models.
Ask every provider this one directly. A call transcript is about as personal as data gets, and the person at the other end of the call never signed up to anything. They rang a plumber. They didn't agree to become teaching material.
When you share a call, and when you leave
Any call in your dashboard can be shared. Sharing makes a public card with the outcome, the summary and the details. Phone numbers are hidden on it, and the transcript is only there if you choose to include it. You can stop sharing at any time.
If you close your line, the call content is deleted within 30 days. Your history can be exported, so if you want a copy, take it before you go.
How this compares with a person taking your calls
It's worth being fair here. With a human receptionist or a staffed answering service, a person hears every call, because that's the service. Plenty of people are comfortable with that, and a good receptionist is discreet for a living. A person can also tell you things no transcript will: that the caller sounded worried, or was clearly in a hurry.
What differs is the record. A person's memory fades and the notepad gets thrown away. A transcript is exact, and it stays until it's deleted. That's useful when you need the quote word for word. It's also the reason the questions below are worth asking.
Questions to ask any provider
Ours or anybody's. If the reply is vague, treat that as the reply.
- Do you store audio, text, or both? And for how long?
- Can your staff read or listen to my calls? In what circumstances?
- Are calls used to train models? Yours, or a supplier's?
- What happens to my calls when I cancel?
- Can I export my history?
- Who else handles the data? A privacy policy should name the companies that process it.
What no provider can control
Two things, and better you hear them from us.
First, the copies. The summary of each call is sent to your inbox, and once it's there your email account's security is what protects it. The same goes for any assistant you connect. It can read your call history because you allowed it to, so choose what you connect with some care. How assistants connect to a line is on the integrations page.
Second, the other person. They were on the call too. They can take their own notes, tell their colleagues, and depending on where they are, record their end. A phone call has always belonged to both people on it, and that's one thing a human receptionist and an AI have in common. Say on the phone what you'd be happy to see written down.
Common questions
Does CosVoice record my phone calls?
No audio is stored. We keep the written call: a summary, the details and a transcript, so you can read what happened.
Can CosVoice staff read my transcripts?
No. Call content is sealed to your line and staff do not read it.
Are my calls used to train AI?
No. Your calls are never used to train models.
How long are transcripts kept?
They're kept so you can read them while your line is open. If you close your line, the call content is deleted within 30 days.
Read next: Call recording consent, the basics · Your data, on the trust page · Seven things an AI should never do
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