Watch out for voice recording

By now we should all be very familiar with the case of an embarrassing email that gets forwarded to the wrong person. Very quickly, one learns not to write something in an email that could potentially be embarrassing or politically disastrous. You can never be certain that it will never be forwarded to another person. An email once sent out is virtually unstoppable.

What many people may not be so aware of yet is that the same applies to what comes out of the mouth. It is very easy to install a voice recorder program in many of the newer mobile phones. Two examples are "Best CallRecorder" and "LivePVR". They can be set to automatically record all incoming and outgoing calls without making give-away beep sounds. You'll never know if what you say is being recorded. We know enough not to vent our anger against another person in an email, preferring to do it over the phone or in person. Now, one should also be careful not to say anything over the phone if you do not want to risk being recorded. You can't stop being recorded just as you can't stop being photographed in a public place.

Used in the right way, voice recording technology can be very useful. It does not take up much memory space and you can use it to keep track of your phone call usage, as sometimes I get the feeling that the credit on my mobile phone disappears by itself. Sometimes I just want to be able to recall a piece of information given over the phone. With each new technology comes a debate over the use and mis-use of it. This has never changed and it never will.