Does anyone have a good solution for voice recording calls with an external application?
Although I can record calls with simple dialplan commands we would like to voice record calls on an external application which complies with banking regulations.
The methods we are considering are: Record using Asterisk dialplan commands. Positive, this is very easy to configure, CDR data can be captured, low cost. Negatives, not compliant with banking regulations. Passive recording. A span port is created on the switch and call calls are captured. Positive is the audio is captured and recorded reliably, compliant with banking regulations. Negatives, not very efficient, the recorder will record duplicate channels during a conference, no CDR data passed.
The answer to all the issues to me looks like Active recording. Asterisk sending audio and call data to a third party compliant recording system.
My question is, does anyone have a solution to send audio and data to a compliant voice recorder?
The solution would need to be aware of duplicate calls to have any advantage of passive recording systems.
A quick list:
Time stamps must be UTC (Dodd Frank)
Voice recordings must have a certificate of authority (Prevention of alteration)
Retention management (12 months minimum)
Litigation hold (Hold individual calls etc indefinitely or after a destruction hold order has been requested)
Storage management
Do not hold recordings outside of the originating country (Some locations but not all)
And the list goes on
Interestingly in the UK you do not have to provide a beep or a message during the call. You simply have to state calls are recorded in your terms and conditions of business and for the terms to be publicly available. Well that was the case when I last read Ofcoms documentation.
With all the international regulations which need to be adhered to retain a banking licence many banks would prefer not to take the risk especially when voice recording is involved.
Best to have a compliant voice recorder do it’s job and the voip engine do it’s.
The question is how do we integrate Asterisk with a well developed voice recording system?
Asterisk recording - Not compliant
Passive recording - Compliant but not efficient from licensing and storage perspective
Active recording - Not sure exists
Does anyone know a method of sending calls and CDR data to a third party voice recorder?
Because integrators and vendors create their owns facilities to search, to get analytics and store the recordings.
If you dont want to invest on creting your own stuff use google an opensource project called Oreka are on the first result of ‘SIP Recording’ → Oreka: About Oreka
I am aware of Orka which uses passive recording to capture audio but there is no integration with asterisk.
Yes it can capture the audio but does not capture the meta data you would get from a Full CDR record.
I think the Asterisk project is missing some basic features which allow vendors and developers to engineer a proper integrated voice recording solution. Most commercial IP Voice products I deal with have some method of getting a CDR record out to a voice recorder so it can match it up with a recording.
Typical recording integrations I see are:
Passive recording with IP CDR
Active voice recording where CDR and Audio is sent to a recorder from the server or gateway
Active voice recording where the PBX tells the recorder to conference in and is sent CDR (Avaya CM Method)
Active voice recording where the PBX instructs the handsets to send rtp and CDR to the voice recorder (Cisco’s UCM method)
Currently I only see an option to passively record RTP and time stamp it. That is if the call is taking place through the asterisk server and not between handsets. Not very helpful if you have thousands of calls an hour and you want to search for all the calls made between extension 1111 and 2222. This is as bad as TDM trunk side recording from the 90’s
There be a better way of integrating commercial voice recorders with Asterisk than this?
You are describing methods from closed-expensive vendors against an open source project in my opinion you have two options create the solution or hire a developer to do it. I’m not quite familiar with your requirements but so far with asterisk I have been able to manage Contact center for bank institutions and federal entities in my country. So I’m not sure why you can’t create your own solution.
But again try to hire developer to find a solution for your issue.
It would be good to have the option to integrate properly to other commercial products. I think currently Asterisk is missing a few building blocks to out put CDR date in a standard way other telephony platforms do.
Voice recorders exploit the features which are available to add meta data to the recorded calls.
We should be providing the hooks to integrate to asterisk not building preparatory systems all be it open source ones.
We have more chance of changing asterisk or developing an add on to integrate in a standard way than to request all the other venders to write an asterisk specific driver.
So I guess my question is does anyone know how we might output CDR data to a TCP port rather than the current CDR storage areas?
Write a new CDR backend. They are not that big, and you could probably re-use most of the CSV one.
Also, although I haven’t tried it, you might be able to substitute a named pipe. You may have to play tricks as I think Asterisk opens and closes each time to ensure that output is committed.
The big disadvantage with simple TCP SMDR ports is that they tend to lose data when the connection is down, and they lose data in transit when a connection drops, even if they then buffer to file.
Incidentally, Cisco use a database for their CDR interface.