New ARGOsearch app will allow you to record, upload and search phone conversations like you would a text document
Telephony firm Calltrunk has launched ARGOsearch, a piece of software that will allow users to record, upload and search phone calls.
The firm, which describes itself as a call recording company, claims the 'conversation search engine' will 'change the way people think' about conversations.
The Calltrunk software will record conversations made on mobile or landlines, Skype, or on a dictaphone.
Users can pick out a date, time, word or phrase and search for it in the same way they would a text document.
Once calls are recorded, they can be stored online for search later.
The search will highlight exactly when specified words or phrases were used throughout a conversation, making it easy to locate, replay and copy the relevant section.
Searches across multiple calls can also be put together, using criteria such as area codes to track down certain info across a whole host of recorded conversations.
The recorded files can also be shared to cloud-based services like Evernote, Dropbox, SugarCRM or Box.
While it's not a new thing to be able to technically record a conversation, the ease of which presumably huge numbers of calls can be stored and essentially data-mined may ring alarm bells for some – especially since the person on the other end of the call might not necessarily know they are being recorded by the software.
We asked the firm's PR agency to clarify this issue and were told:
"In terms of people being notified, if the call is placed on the iPhone app, there's a beeping noise in the background. This can also be turned off. If the call is placed by Skype, the other person will be notified when the Call Trunk Robot joins the call.
"If the call is placed via the website, it's down to the responsibility of the caller to tell the other person that a call is being recorded, just as when a bank's call centre let's you know that a call is recorded when you call them."
According to Ofcom's current regulations, you don't need the permission of everyone on the call in order for it to be recorded, as long as it's not being given to a third party.
Calltrunk co-founder and CEO Paul Murphy said upon the software's launch today: “Until now anything even close to this has been the expensive domain of very big companies and it has involved lots of hardware, data centres, complexity and training.
“ARGOsearch changes that completely. This improves and democratizes the technology. Enabling everyone to capture, store and search their recorded calls means we can all hold on to knowledge and important moments that previously slipped through our fingers. And this changes the way we think about our conversations; it's like having an infallible memory for everything we ever heard or said!”
