One-Party Consent in Canada: Recording Client Calls

Why this matters in your working day

A broker or realtor on the phone with a client is doing two things at once: having a private conversation, and collecting personal information in the course of business. Canada's courts and regulators treat those as two different questions, with two different answers.

The first question — can you legally press record — is settled and the same everywhere in Canada. The second question — what do you owe the client — is where brokers get caught out, because it's easy to assume "one-party consent" covers everything. It doesn't. It only answers the criminal-law question of whether recording is an offence. It says nothing about your separate duty, as a business, to tell the client their call is being recorded and why.

Getting this backwards is the mistake worth avoiding: recording every call because it's "legal," without ever saying so out loud to the client.

How to record a client call properly

1. Decide why you're recording. "To write accurate file notes and a follow-up email" is a clear, specific purpose. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) is explicit that a vague purpose doesn't hold up: an organization "should not state that it is recording the conversation for security or quality assurance purposes if the recording will be used for marketing, customer profiling, or authentication."
2. Say so before you record, not after. OPC's guidance for organizations recording customer calls: "The organization must inform the customer that they are recording a call, clearly state the purpose of the recording and obtain consent." In most cases this consent can be implied — the client keeps talking once they know — but OPC notes that "if the recording involves biometric voiceprints or other sensitive personal information, express consent may be required."
3. Give them a way to say no. If the recording isn't essential to the service, OPC expects an alternative to be available: continue the call without recording, or follow up by email instead. For a mortgage or real estate conversation, recording is rarely essential to giving advice — it's there for your notes — so be ready to turn it off if asked.
4. Know your legal floor regardless of what the client says. Even with no business obligation at all, the Criminal Code still governs whether recording is lawful. Section 184(1) makes it an offence to "knowingly intercept a private communication," with a maximum penalty of "imprisonment for a term of not more than five years." Section 184(2)(a) exempts "a person who has the consent to intercept, express or implied, of the originator of the private communication" — meaning you, as a participant, are covered the moment you're on the call. This exemption is federal and doesn't change by province.
5. Set a retention habit. OPC's guidance treats how long you keep a recording as part of doing this properly, not an afterthought: organizations should keep recordings only as long as the purpose requires, and customers have "a right to request access to the recording at a later date." Decide when you'll delete a call's recording and stick to it.

Something to copy: the consent line

Say this near the start of the call, before you get into the conversation that matters:

"Quick thing before we start — I'm going to record this call so I can write up accurate notes and send you a proper follow-up afterward. That okay with you?"

It names the purpose, asks rather than announces, and takes about five seconds. If the client says no, stop recording and take notes by hand instead — the conversation itself isn't blocked by their answer, only the recording is.

Does this differ by province?

The Criminal Code piece doesn't change. The business-privacy piece does, because three provinces run their own private-sector privacy law instead of the federal one.

OPC describes Alberta, BC and Quebec's laws as "substantially similar" to PIPEDA, and organizations following them are "generally exempt from PIPEDA" for activity that happens inside that province. PIPEDA still applies on top of a provincial law when personal information crosses a provincial or international border, or for a federally regulated business such as a bank or telecom. If your brokerage operates in more than one province, or your call crosses a border, assume PIPEDA applies alongside your provincial law rather than instead of it.

Common mistakes

• Treating "one-party consent" as the whole answer. It only covers the Criminal Code question. It says nothing about your duty to tell the client as a business.
• Recording silently and relying on a line buried in a privacy policy nobody read. OPC expects notice at the time of the call, not a disclosure filed away elsewhere.
• Giving a purpose, then using the recording for something else. State one purpose and keep to it, or ask again for the new one.
• Assuming provinces differ on the criminal question. They don't. What differs is which privacy law governs the business side.
• Never revisiting how long recordings sit around. A client's old call shouldn't still exist two years later with no reason.

How CallSmart helps

CallSmart records client calls so you can write notes and a follow-up without typing while you talk — but it doesn't tell the client for you. Live Call, Record a meeting, and Record a call I'm on all put the recording decision in your hands, and CallSmart's own setup says so plainly: before you turn on Live Calls, onboarding tells you "you'll let clients know the call is recorded," and the merge-call flow repeats it — "let the client know the call is being recorded" — right before you dial. CallSmart drafts the follow-up email and CRM notes from the recording, and you approve both before anything sends. You can delete a call, its recording and its notes at any time. CallSmart deletes recordings automatically after 90 days, but transcripts, drafts and notes stay until you delete them, so the habit in step 5 above still matters.

If you're a realtor, the same recording and consent rules apply to you — the Criminal Code and PIPEDA don't distinguish by profession. One difference worth knowing: CallSmart's note-taking and gap questions are built around mortgage conversations (income, down payment, joint applications), so a buyer or listing conversation will still get a transcript and a draft, just without that same mortgage-specific structure.

Frequently asked questions

Not legal advice. Confirm how these rules apply to your situation with your brokerage or a lawyer.