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Why is security important in a digital age?

Why is security important in a digital age?

How much personal data did you share today? Within a digital society, where web browsers sometimes know more about us than our friends, security is more important than ever. For businesses who process personal data from their consumers, ensuring they protect this information is vital.

The consequences of poor security

Security breaches are big news: the headlines that result from data hacks can be disastrous for an organisation’s reputation. Consumer relationships with brands are built on trust and customers need to feel that their data is safe, otherwise they are likely to look for alternatives.

In order to help protect consumer data, the EU have enacted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to set a standard for businesses to adhere to when dealing with the management and storage of customer data. Failure to comply with the data protection requirements of this regulation can result in fines of up to €20m or 4% of annual turnover for the prior year, whichever is higher. Read our post on how the GDPR will affect call recording for more information.

In order to comply with the GDPR, and to ensure that their customers feel that their data is secure, businesses need to examine their data storage. In the past many organisations saw on-site storage as the best option, but the rise of the cloud has shown the benefits of digital transformation and the advantages of cloud storage over on-premise solutions.

What are the risks of storing calls on-premise?

Recorded calls downloaded to local storage are much more vulnerable to theft, damage, or tampering. Having only one on-premise server means fire or power shortages could destroy all recordings. With local storage there is no audit trail. Users can listen, share, or delete recordings with no record of their actions.

With a cloud storage solution from Dubber, not only are calls more secure but there are many other advantages over on-site solutions. The cloud allows users to have convenient access to information held within phone calls — anytime, anywhere. This access is managed through strict security permissions that are allocated by designated admin users, and a full audit trail can be traced. Colleagues can collaborate from across locations, and workers are no longer tied to their desks.

Dubber’s security

Recorded calls are not only a valuable source of insight, for some businesses they make the difference between compliance and non compliance. That’s why at Dubber we have put security at the forefront of every stage of the recording process.

Simple and secure access: we ensure that users can easily and securely log in to view calls, but only with strong passwords. With strict teams and permissions settings, calls cannot be accessed by unauthorised personnel.

Single sign-on: the Dubber portal can now be accessed with single sign-on, allowing users to authenticate themselves using third-party credentials.

Sophisticated security and encryption: recorded calls are encrypted using AES-256 at every stage of the recording process.

Industry-leading security standards: Dubber is ISO 27001 compliant. Download our ISO certificate here.

What is ISO 27001?

What is ISO 27001?

ISO 27001 is an international standard for information security, which provides a framework for the information security management system (ISMS) within an organisation. Like Dubber, ISO 27001 is all about constant improvement, and encourages a system that works to constantly optimise itself.

In order to gain certification, we developed and implemented a rigorous security management programme, including an ISMS. This management system went through a rigorous auditing process that thoroughly examined our approach to information security and the controls we have put in place. We were able to achieve this by establishing an ISMS leadership team, comprising of senior management, and an InfoSec lead to champion and to manage this within Dubber. We engaged InfoSec consultant QMIS in the early stages of the initiative and we leveraged the ISMS.online tool to enable us to centrally manage our ISMS, and to make ongoing governance easier for us in the long term. In order to receive our certificate, we worked with these cloud security specialists and were put through a rigorous auditing process that thoroughly examined the information security management and controls we have put in place.

“Our ISO 27001 certification is an important indication of our dedication to protecting the information handled by Dubber. Our approach to compliance and security has always been proactive and rooted in continuous improvement, and this certification shows our dedication and long-term commitment to data protection.”

— James Slaney, Dubber Head of Product

The key principles

The three tenets of an ISO 27001 compliant ISMS are:

  • Confidentiality: ensuring access to information is restricted to certain authorised individuals
  • Integrity: ensuring that information processing methods are consistently accurate and thorough
  • Availability: making access to information and assets available to authorised individuals
How we protect data

Here are some of the ways we at Dubber are continually working to protect the data we process both on our platform and throughout our organisation:

  • Establishing, maintaining, monitoring, reviewing, auditing and continually improving our ISMS
  • Establishing, reviewing and communicating our information security objectives and performance measures
  • Committing to satisfy business, legal, and regulatory and contractual security obligations
  • Committing to continual improvement of our ISMS by seeking feedback from clients, staff, and through internal and external audits
  • Ensuring that the ISMS is communicated with every member of the Dubber team

To learn more about Dubber security, you can download our white paper, or get in touch with one of our team.

MiFID II: An Opportunity To Set Your Business Apart

MiFID II: An Opportunity To Set Your Business Apart

The deadline for compliance with MiFID II regulations is upon us and the time to adapt to the new rules is now. This extension of MiFID legislation requires any company or employee to record all calls, across mobile and fixed lines, that include financial advice that could lead to a trade. More regulation shouldn’t mean doom and gloom: smart organisations will see these changes as an opportunity to set themselves apart from their competitors with an honest and trustworthy approach to trading and financial advice.

Compliance is an opportunity, not a burden

With technological advances, businesses have the opportunity to make huge improvements in the way they work and the enforcement of MiFID II regulations are the perfect cue to start. By utilising cloud technology to meet the requirements of the new legislation, financial organisations can turn these regulations to their advantage to create value for their business: at an affordable cost, and with no disruption to their existing processes.

Looking beyond the necessary steps required for MiFID II compliance, financial organisations can actually improve their offering and beat the competition by taking advantage of new opportunities. The benefits of a proactive approach to compliance include:

  • Improvements in business and customer service practices
  • Setting a higher bar for competitors puts businesses ahead of the game
  • Gaining a reputation for best-in-class practice
  • An opportunity for new technologies to harness the true value of recorded data
  • Risk identification and management

Intelligent call recording goes beyond compliance

By deploying call recording for compliance, organisations can also take advantage of the added benefits that can be accessed. Dubber’s call recording is available with the added intelligence of Zoe: a sophisticated suite of speech analytics tools that can help businesses unlock the data held within their voice calls.

Identifying issues and opportunities

Speech intelligence can be instantly added to Dubber’s cloud call recording, allowing organisations to turn MiFID II compliance to their advantage. Zoe can help businesses to analyse their working practices — identifying issues that can be addressed as well as opportunities for development.

Risk management

With Zoe’s Smart Search functionality, recorded calls company-wide can be searched instantly, no matter the size of the organisation. Keywords associated with financial risk can be identified, highlighting conversations that might contain issues. This kind of monitoring promotes a reassuring environment for the consumer.

A competitive advantage

The aim of the MiFID II legislation is for consumers to regain trust in the financial industry, and financial organisations should jump at the chance to showcase how their company goes above and beyond their competitors. By setting a higher bar for financial practice, organisations can get ahead of the game.

A proactive approach to MiFID II regulations

Compliance with regulations shouldn’t be a reactionary game, with organisations playing catch up to attain the minimum requirements to meet regulations. Those who will lead the market will be those who proactively consider how to provide best-in-class practices that offer a better experience for their customers. With MiFID II following so closely behind the original MIFID legislation, MiFID III can’t be too far behind. By taking a proactive approach to customer service and business development, organisations can use technology to their advantage to stay ahead of the game.

Call recording for MiFID II from Simetric, powered by Dubber

Call recording for MiFID II from Simetric, powered by Dubber

The time to adapt to the new MiFID II rules is now. Together with unified telecom services provider Simetric, Dubber has the solution to help financial services organisations comply with the expanded regulations of MiFID II.

Delivered through a SIM card, this advanced communications solution gives users the ability to capture all of their mobile conversations as well as their fixed line calls – a key component of MiFID II compliance. The regulations require all conversations that result or might result in transactions to be recorded, and includes equipment provided to, or authorised for the use of, employees and contractors of the firm – mobile phones being a key example of this clause. This new service will allow users to have a single number across their mobile and fixed line platforms, with Dubber communication capture available across all of their devices.

As MiFID II regulations have extended their coverage to include independent financial advisors, a call-recording solution that can be implemented quickly and easily through a SIM card is an ideal solution. Dubber + Simetric’s call recording solution is cloud-based, enabling users to deploy the service rapidly.

An extra feature of this advanced communications solution is Zoe, Dubber’s powerful speech intelligence suite, which enables users to search through their calls and analyse the voice data that has been captured. Calls related to trades can be quickly located — a crucial component of MiFID II compliance — using a variety of search criteria, but the power of Zoe doesn’t stop there. Zoe’s capabilities are developing every day, and new functionality will allow users to gain valuable insights in a variety of ways from their conversations.

At a time when organisations must be seen to be taking compliance seriously, implementing a comprehensive solution that records communications across devices is an ideal way to ensure your firm is ready for MiFID II. Not only will the worry of compliance be lifted, but consolidating your conversations and using one number for all communications will streamline your workflow.

What is WebRTC?

What is WebRTC?

Used as a new way to deliver unified communications functionality through web and mobile applications, WebRTC has quickly grown in popularity in recent years and is utilised by social platforms such as Facebook and Slack. WebRTC began as a free project that aimed to provide high quality real-time communications (RTC) capabilities between peer-to-peer connections, built into web browsers and mobile applications using simple application programming interfaces (APIs) and a common set of protocols. The growth of the global WebRTC market is expected to be over 40% between 2016 to 2023 (see chart below).


global-webrtc-market-reveune.

Source: Credence Research

This initiative enables audio, video conferencing, file transfer, instant messaging and also screen sharing without the plugins such as Adobe Flash that have always been required in the past. WebRTC can be seen all over the internet, such as on websites that allow consumers to access contact centre agents through their browser. Live customer assistance can be provided through a chat service or through a WebRTC call that can be placed directly through the browser. It is also what powers calls through instant messaging services such as Slack and enables the voice and video chat that is built in to Facebook’s Messenger.

Previously, this type of plugin-free RTC technology has only been available to large enterprises, as licensing fees for the audio and video technologies required were prohibitively expensive. WebRTC is the first of its kind; allowing a powerful RTC standard to be available to the public as open source. It has the potential to create a new wave of applications and change the way we communicate.

WebRTC runs on JavaScript, which can be easily incorporated into any web application to enable the functionality through a JavaScript API. The services that WebRTC provides can also work simultaneously so that, for example, files can be shared during a teleconference.

Intentionally developed to not provide any preference of protocol, WebRTC is compatible with a variety of existing communications infrastructure such as session initiation protocol (SIP), which is widely used for voice and videoconferencing over IP networks. This means that, just like other VoIP calls, WebRTC calls can be recorded by Dubber’s communication capture software.

What are the advantages of WebRTC?

WebRTC has many advantages, including significantly better video quality than Flash, session connection speeds that are up to 6x faster, and reduced audio and video latency that enables conversations to feel more natural.

Many web services already have RTC capabilities, but only through plugins. WebRTC doesn’t require any plugins and therefore has none of the download, installation, or update processes, or troubleshooting that usually accompany RTC services.

The simple APIs and protocols of WebRTC have the potential to democratise communication across a range of applications from telephony to gaming.

 

Customer Service and Call Recording

Customer Service and Call Recording

Customer service is an important area of investment for businesses wishing to differentiate themselves from their competitors. With customer contact largely occurring over the phone, the voice data from conversations with customers has become a valuable business asset. Accessing this data to enhance the customer experience can bring numerous benefits. With legacy call recording solutions this data is more difficult to access, however, call recording services built on a cloud infrastructure have the storage and processing capabilities required to truly harness the voice data collected from customer calls. Accompanied by a speech intelligence solution that can analyse the data, a cloud call recording service can allow an organisation to truly listen to its customers. The global speech analytics market has been growing steadily over the past few years and is set to continue, read on to find out how new technology can improve customer service in contact centres.

Quality assurance

Using speech intelligence software such as Zoe from Dubber, contact centre supervisors can monitor their contact centre agents to ensure they are performing to the best of their abilities. Script adherence is important when staff are given directives to do with how to handle certain situations, or when there is a sales campaign in progress. A feature like Keywords can identify those contact centre agents who adhere to scripts, and show calls that do not contain certain words or phrases.

Zoe’s Sentiment feature analyses the emotions of callers using speech characteristics such as tone, volume, and speed of speech and assigns a positive or negative score to a conversation. This allows businesses to identify negative calls that might be from frustrated callers – an automated process could even be enabled to alert management to follow up on negative calls. Trends in negative calls could be identified to show opportunities for development. As Zoe operates in the cloud, and utilises the processing power of AWS, detailed reports can be created using data from all calls rather than a small sample

Dispute resolution and detail confirmation

Recorded calls can provide definitive proof of what was said in a conversation. While this can be useful for everyday business – replaying calls taken on the go to confirm important details back in the office, or replaying orders to ensure accurate fulfillment – recorded calls are also a vital tool in dispute resolution. Zoe’s Smart search feature can easily scan call archives using a variety of criteria from date of call to a specific word or phrase spoken. This quick search means that disputes are settled as soon as possible.

Staff training

Playing real calls is the most effective training method for new staff. The ability to play an example of an actual phone call gives a realistic insight into the conversations a new contact centre employee can expect in their role. Examples of how to deal with angry callers can be played, with proven methods demonstrated.

Recorded calls can also be helpful for existing contact centre staff. An employee’s own conversations can be replayed to show how a call could be handled differently, while successful calls can be shared with a team for motivation. A culture of self-evaluation can also be nurtured by encouraging employees to replay their own calls and reflect on how they dealt with these customers and issues. Dubber’s web portal allows contact centre agents to access their own calls, and team permissions can be set-up so that supervisors can listen to their team’s calls.

Rewarding excellent staff

Zoe can be a great tool for identifying high-performing staff. With Sentiment’s call scoring, contact centre employees who consistently turn negative calls into positive interactions can be easily identified and rewarded for their great work. First call resolution can be tracked and those contact centre agents that achieve high levels can also be acknowledged.

Not all calls are best handled by the person who answers them and knowing when to transfer is a highly valuable skill. Calls transferred to management can be assessed and staff rewarded when appropriate. This variety of measures can indicate those employees who would make good candidates for promotion.

CRM integration and customer insight

Dubber’s partnerships with service providers such as Mondago allow for easy integration with features that can make life easier for contact centre agents. Mondago are leaders in computer telephony and CRM integration and can help organisations build informed profiles of their customers using data from their calls. Features such as screen population, which displays customer information to contact centre agents, can reduce call time as callers no longer need to state all of their details each time they call.

Dubber’s open API allows easy integration with CRM systems. Customer calls can be stored alongside their order history and personal information for detailed customer profiles that facilitate quick and easy customer service.

Deploying a cloud call recording solution, alongside speech intelligence, can not only improve customer service, but provide insight into the working practices of a business and identify areas of potential growth and development. Contact us to find out how to make the most of your phone calls.

VR and the Future of Telcos

VR and the Future of Telcos

Virtual reality (VR) allows you to be transported to real or imagined locations instantly and can connect you to people all over the world. VR users hit 50 million in 2016 and the number of active users of VR is forecast to reach 171 million by 2018. The graph below shows how revenue has grown and is predicted to grow over the next few years. 360-degree video is already available on platforms such as YouTube and Facebook and continued investment from these companies and others including Google and Microsoft mean that VR technology is becoming more affordable every day.

Source: Superdata

The technology is set to transform a number of industries and affect on the way we work and interact with the world and each other. Developments in VR mean that live events such as concerts or sports games can be experienced from your sofa. A global audience can be reached from one venue with the help of a few cameras and some technology. Users can access live streams through VR headsets but also through their browser or mobile app.

A seamless experience

To create a 360-degree video, visual data from multiple cameras must be pieced together to create one video. Post-production of VR content begins with stitching and blending to create one seamless sphere of visual content. VR has continued to improve since its conception and now features immersive effects such as audio that matches the user’s visual experience so accurately that when a user looks away from something, the audio diminishes. Recording using binaural sound is key to this feeling of ‘presence’. For a successful VR experience, and a feeling of true presence, the stitching technology used to create the 360-degree environment must be of a high enough quality to produce a seamless experience.

The future of VR

Tech leaders are predicting that VR will compete with television in the future and are investing in livestreaming services that aim to distribute 360-degree VR content to users around the globe. Just as the internet has changed the way we consume media such as news articles, VR is expected to do the same to television. This entertainment value could be seen as a key area of investment for telcos looking to create a new revenue source after the decline in growth from voice, texts and, most recently, data.

Industry specialists such as CNET founder Halsey Minor believe that VR will be the next stage of growth for the content industry, while Goldman Sachs have stated that VR and AR have the potential to become the next big computing platform. Goldman Sachs have outlined their predictions for VR and AR use in 2025, which can be seen in the graph below. The World Economic Forum sees AR and VR as technologies that can transform daily life with their time and cost saving benefits. This growing industry should be capitalised on by any telco wishing to stay relevant in the future.2025-base-case-vrar-software-assumptions-by-use-case

Goldman Sachs predictions for VR and AR use in 2025

An example of a telco that is investing in VR is SK Telecom, which is commercialising its 360-degree VR live broadcasting capabilities and planning to open its application programming interface (API) so that individuals and small content developers can create their own 360-degree live VR experiences.

At this stage, the development of VR is very experimental as challenges are identified and overcome. Poor internet speeds can impact the VR experience through heavily compressed images and the strain that VR will put on networks is an area of concern. Network capacity needs to be an area of investment, particularly at the user end of the journey, as VR requires around five times more bandwidth than HDTV as well as the low latency that is essential for a fully immersive experience. If users do not have the correct requirements, content will need to buffer and be stored locally  – creating delays and limiting the interaction capabilities of the VR experience.

The next steps for VR will take the experience mobile. Immersive live VR broadcasting will work in tandem and become more widespread with the development of 5G due to the large bandwidth and low latency that are required for streaming. Network providers will play a key role in the realisation of VR, ensuring high quality connections to allow for a seamless immersive experience.

The Answer to the Challenges of BYOD

The Answer to the Challenges of BYOD

Bring your own device (BYOD) is a workplace culture that has been adopted by most industries; from healthcare to finance. Allowing, and encouraging, employees to work from their own devices not only reduces expenditure on technology, it also increases productivity by allowing employees to work from home and while travelling, on a device they are familiar with. However, when it comes to monitoring the distribution of company data, there are some challenges that accompany the benefits.

Keeping tabs

Ensuring company data remains secure, while respecting the privacy of an employee’s personal information, is the most difficult problem that IT security departments face. When personal devices are used for work, the data remains controlled by the organisation and it is important that this responsibility is carried out without breaching any data protection obligations concerning personal data stored on devices. This can be a difficult balance to achieve, especially when working in industries such as finance and healthcare that require specific data compliance.

In finance for example, MIFID II regulations state that investment firms in the EU must take reasonable steps to record communications made from equipment that has been accepted or permitted by the investment firm – this includes personal devices. These regulations also insist that firms should prevent employees from communications on privately-owned equipment which the firm is unable to record.

Monitoring communications across social channels such as Twitter and real-time communication applications such as Skype can lead to difficulties when complying with communication recording regulations. Employees are so used to communicating across a range of methods in their daily lives that to restrict them is not an option. Add to this the US lead Dodd-Frank requirement to be able to complete a case reconstruction within 72 hours of an investigation request, and the need for a solution intensifies.

Some solutions

Developing a culture that is as dedicated to security and compliance as it is to flexibility and efficiency is the answer to the new challenges of BYOD. This evolution in work should be seen as an opportunity to examine employee communication practices and put in place measures to ensure a cohesive approach.

CostHealthCareComm_1-300x225

Chart by CIO Insight showing communication inefficiencies in American hospitals

BYOD certainly encourages companies to consider a unified communications (UC) solution. UC can easily integrate existing devices into one cohesive and efficient communications strategy that can save companies time and money. As well as ensuring that the business is compliant with regulations regarding the recording of communications, there are numerous efficiency improvements that an organisation can benefit from. Research by CIO Insight found that American hospitals were wasting billions of dollars a year due to inefficient communications technologies (see chart above). Interaction between colleagues and clients is quicker, and collaboration becomes easier, allowing employees to focus on work. Employing a call recording solution like Dubber that integrates with your company’s CRM, for example, can allow transcribed calls to be viewed alongside other client information.

Software solutions that have keyword search capability, such as Dubber’s Zoe, which allow information to be gathered quickly and easily are a vital precaution against the 72 hour deadlines involved in investigations. The ability to record, transcribe, and search conversations at the touch of a button can also increase accuracy in day-to-day work and ensure that important details are not forgotten.

Flexible call recording solves the problem of collecting work data while protecting personal communications. With an services like Dubber’s Playback, the user has the option to keep a record of  a call, after they have made it. Personal numbers can be blacklisted to ensure they are never recorded, while business numbers can be whitelisted so these conversations are always stored.

bring-your-own-device-BYOD-market-300x202

Graph from Global Market Insights showing growth expectations of BYOD market in USD by device

Not if, but when

With BYOD now an unavoidable reality, not having a policy on BYOD is the biggest risk to an organisation. A report by Global Market Insights anticipates growth in the North American BYOD market size over the next five years (see graph). Employees expect more flexibility in their work, and BYOD is part of these expectations.

With communications taking place across multiple applications, even on company-owned devices, it makes sense to embrace BYOD – with a considered policy that ensures security and compliance. In fast-moving sectors such as the financial industry employees are not going to ignore important calls just because they are unable to record them, so measures need to be put in place to ensure they can. Providing a UC solution that allows employees to work in the most efficient way is the key.

Innovative Solutions to the Challenges of New APAC Regulations

Innovative Solutions to the Challenges of New APAC Regulations

With the countdown to the MiFID II regulations on the financial sector within the EU continuing apace – we take a look at the APAC call recording regulations that have been put in place since the Global Financial Crisis of 2007.

Eleven members of the G20 summit, including Australia, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, have committed to a host of regulations for their banks. The aim of these regulations is to improve transparency in the financial industries and reduce risk culture. These measures should restore the trust in investors and consumers that may have been lost in recent years.

With MiFID II mandating the recording of all mobile calls and text messages relating to financial advice and wealth management, it is unsurprising that Asia-Pacific should follow suit with its own extensive regulations.

Burden of proof

Although there is not a cohesive set of compliance guidelines for the region, the unifying theme of the regulations is financial services providers acting in the best interests of their consumers.

The Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) Act introduced by the Australian government, designed to nurture trust in customers and encourage transparency in financial service providers, states that financial advisors must act in the best interests of their clients. Best practice guidelines released by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission describe how records should be kept to show how this is being upheld. In order to comply with these guidelines, all communications with clients will need to be captured and stored securely.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority also requires that institutions selling investment products maintain adequate records to demonstrate that they have advised their clients appropriately – this includes audio recording. Where repeated transactions are requested over the phone, these calls must be recorded to prove that customers are aware of any continued risks before continuing with their investments. Any waivers of risk disclosure should also be recorded as evidence.

Chart from Nielsen Q4 2016 Consumer Confidence Report

Similarly, the Chinese Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests Amendment places the burden of proof on service providers in the event of a dispute. Chinese and Hong Kong banks, are also required to keep records of client communications, including audio recordings, in all derivatives transactions. These must be kept readily accessible for a minimum of five years after the transaction has matured or been terminated. The Nielsen Consumer Confidence Index (see chart above) shows that Chinese consumer confidence has increased in Q4 of 2016, which shows promising signs for the new regulations.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, in its guidelines on risk management practices, states that institutions should maintain records of telephone calls involving trades and discussions with customers on proposed transactions. Transaction information should be stored ‘in a manner that is reasonably practicable to retrieve’ until at least five years after the last date of expiry or termination of a contract. Storage for this length of time tends to be a major challenge for legacy call recording solutions, especially as financial organisations grow. The costs involved can increase dramatically with the storage requirements. With a native cloud solution, scalability is built into the service – allowing organisations to manage their data without any extra hardware.

Chart from World Economic Forum

It’s not all doom and gloom

As regulations and guidelines around financial services tighten to protect taxpayers and consumers, technology providers strive to innovate solutions to help organisations along this road. For instance we have seen solutions such as Dubber working with service providers to provide finance-focused call recording solutions to overcome these challenges.

Solutions such as Dubber’s native cloud call recording will be an instrumental service for organisations wishing to comply with these guidelines. Just like the paper trail of emails, it provides proof that specific information was supplied to a client, ensuring advice was given in their best interest. Not only is the implementation of this service quick and easy, there are numerous commercial benefits that accompany it.

Keeping customer service and user experience at the forefront of your business strategy is vital for success, and there is no reason that this shouldn’t be the case when maintaining compliance with regulations. The systems that have been put in place by financial authorities to maintain consumer interests can actually help banks to identify consumer behaviour patterns that can help them to understand their customers and improve their business.

Safe storage that is easily accessible, is something that you can expect from native cloud solutions. Without the need for any hardware, Dubber can provide long-term secure storage for your calls, which can be accessed in a flash. Solutions such as Dubber’s platform offering, which utilise third party infrastructure as a service solutions such as Amazon Web Services, experience vast benefits such as scalable storage and enhanced cloud security.  Prioritising security is all part of the AWS cloud infrastructure, which is constantly evolving to protect your data.

 

Cloud vs Cloud: How to Spot a Fake

Cloud vs Cloud: How to Spot a Fake

“The cloud is a principal, not a software version”

– GovSense

The internet is full of companies labelling themselves as a “cloud based solution”. Unfortunately, not all of these are true cloud products, but what have been nicknamed ‘fake’ cloud products. There are two forms of cloud based platforms from which companies deploy their technology solutions: hosted cloud platforms and true or native cloud platforms. Many companies who claim to be cloud based are often actually operating from a hosted cloud platform, which is both less efficient and less functional than true cloud based offerings. In fact, hosted cloud solutions sometimes simply add to the plethora of problems that accompany on-premise solutions.

A hosted cloud solution is a technology service offered by providers that host physical servers which actually defer the service elsewhere. Hardware is still required, which means that the solutions are not truly cloud based solutions, and are unable to be scalable – a feature that is one of the key attractions of native cloud solutions. Hosted cloud solutions are not built, maintained or managed by the provider themselves, as they are usually off-the-shelf products. Instead, they shift accountability to others, which causes the usual complications of third party involvement. Amongst other things, this creates a barrier between users and their data.

A true cloud solution is operated entirely from a native cloud platform, eliminating any need for hardware. Once hardware requirements are eliminated, the associated restraints of using hardware are simply eliminated as well. End users can benefit from efficient solutions without the need for any hardware, and the associated headaches. True cloud solutions can therefore provide best in the industry services. The list of benefits of true cloud platforms is extensive, and includes:

  • Seamless integration into any application
  • Unlimited scalability
  • Open APIs – giving users the flexibility to adapt solutions to fit their requirements
  • No tedious upgrade processes
  • Speed and ease of use
  • Greater value for money
  • Highly secure
  • Highly accessible
  • Many others

Undoubtedly, the most significant benefit of true cloud platforms is their capacity for unlimited scalability, which enables end users to scale the processing power and storage capacity of solutions to fit their individual requirements. True cloud solutions have been built securely to perform in a multi-tenant cloud environment.They therefore support multi-tenancy, as well as data redundancy. They are often deployed with open APIs, providing users the flexibility to adapt the solution to fit their individual requirements. This agility perfectly compliments the dynamic and constantly changing demands of the modern world. In all these ways and more, true cloud solutions differ from hosted cloud solutions. Hosted cloud solutions are simply attempting to blur the lines between true and hosted platforms.

“Connecting an internal solution to the web and calling it ‘cloud’ is a bit like waterproofing a truck and calling it a submarine: it might technically fit the description, but it’s clearly not meant for that.”

– IT News Africa

The long list of applications and benefits that true cloud solutions offer simply cannot be matched by hosted cloud solutions, and so true cloud solutions are better equipped to help companies provide best in the industry solutions for their clients. The leading true cloud platforms are Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure. Two notable examples of companies using these platforms to deploy their service include Netflix and Spotify. AWS enables Netflix to rapidly deploy data content on an enormous scale, to servers all over the world. It is AWS that enable Netflix to manage their huge user base and volume of data. Spotify use Google’s Cloud Platform to host their data centre, having opted to focus on data user queries to provide the best possible user experience. The Google Cloud Platform enables Spotify to scale their service to fit their popularity, and to answer user queries within seconds, by hosting their data centre on their scalable and secure platform.

In an increasingly tech-heavy world, a company’s reputation and ability to stand out from substantial competition is vital to its success, and providing best in industry solutions is the best way to secure a good reputation. True cloud platforms enable companies to deploy their solutions in a Software as a Service format, which guarantees unlimited scalability and global availability. Companies using hosted cloud solutions therefore have two problems. Firstly, they risk the displeasure of their customers at what could be perceived as false advertising – their products are not truly cloud based, and have none of the benefits of a true cloud based solution. Secondly, in providing none of the benefits that true cloud solutions do, they are far from being the best in industry.

Although true cloud solutions offer so many benefits, organisations must design their platform to take advantage of the built in seamless integration and elasticity, in order to realise these benefits. For this reason, Dubber built its recording platform with these true cloud features at its core, and is able to fully benefit from the AWS true cloud platform. Dubber therefore provides a call recording solution that functions as a Software as a Service and offers unlimited scalability, high security, an open API, rapid deployment and no upfront costs. As other true cloud solutions have done for their industries, Dubber has revolutionised the telephony industry and opened up a myriad of benefits for users: making call recording highly relevant and useful for everyone.

Top 3 sectors in UK with call recording regulations

Top 3 sectors in UK with call recording regulations

Laws and regulations put in place to protect consumers have been a large driving force behind recording communications between businesses and their customer. As remote communication overtakes face to face human interaction, it’s paramount to have procedures in place to ensure people are who they say they are at other the end of the line and also to make sure that the communication is safely recorded to resolve any incidents in future.

We’ve all come across the common line when you’re waiting to get through to a customer service agent: “This call maybe recorded for monitoring and training purposes.”. However some organisations may be recording calls to follow regulations, which you might not be aware of. Here’s are some key industries who are keeping their consumers safe through intelligent communications recording:

Contact Centres (Non-financial)

The most common use case for call recording regulations is seen in contact centres where customer service resolve an array of users’ issues. For training purposes and to resolve potential disputes, calls often get recorded at call centres. According to Ofcom’s (the UK’s communications regulator) guidance for recording calls in the UK, contact centres who look to monitor, record calls and communications are required to adhere to a combination of UK & EU legislation which includes but is not limited to:

To summarise the legislation, a home or business user may record communications without permission of the correspondent as long as they do not share the data with a third party, where then they would need to have their consent.

Additionally through the aforementioned LBP Regulations. A business can monitor and record communications as long as they are for a series of laid out circumstances such as preventing or detecting crime or to measure quality. The purpose of most other legislation is to avoid misuse and abuse of recordings.

Financial Services

According to the UK’s financial regulator, the  Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) a series of financial firms are bound by law to record and safely store their communications. These call recording regulations were put in place to “tackle market abuse by identifying and punishing those responsible”.

To begin with, only some financial services companies are required to adhere to call recording. For example retail finance advisors, mortgage brokers, insurance brokers and some others are not required to capture their communications. More stringent rules apply to firms which are in a highly influential position such as investment advisors and stock brokers.

The type of calls that need to be recorded are specifically outlined as ones which:

  • conclude an agreement with any client or with another regulated firm on behalf of a client;

or

  • are conducted with a professional client or eligible counterparty with a view to concluding an agreement.

 

Payment Card Industry (PCI Compliance)

On the back of an earlier initiative by VISA, in 2004, the major card companies aligned to form the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI DSS).  On December 15th 2004, the PCI DSS 1.0 was released. Over the following years PCI DSS has evolved to not only provide greater security to the industry, but also to accommodate new technology advancements and is today the global data security standard for payment cards.

If your organisation is looking be PCI compliant then as part of the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), you’ll be facing the issue of recording sensitive authentication data (SAD) when taking payments through the phone or other devices.

It is a violation of PCI DSS requirement 3.2 to store any SAD, including card validation codes and values, after authorisation – even if the data has been fully encrypted. It is therefore prohibited to use any form of digital audio recording (using formats such as wav, mp3 etc) to store CAV2, CVC2, CVV2 or CID codes after authorisation if that data can be queried; recognising that multiple tools exist that potentially could query a variety of digital recordings.

Dubber or similar services, could assist organisations to become PCI DSS compliant when it comes to recording their communication. Dubber does this in two ways:

  • Dubber’s PCI integration technology with Automated Pause/Resume helps a customer to comply with the Payment Card Industry’s Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). This is accomplished by automatically muting and unmuting a recording when pre-defined system events are detected.
  • The Dubber PCI Payment Node can easily implement PCI compliant payments using the new Dubber PCI Payment Node.  During a call, a PCI compliance transaction is required and the process is triggered by agent. At that point the agent transfers call to the PCI Payment Node (hotkey or phone number) the Node scripts take over, requesting the relevant details (e.g. amount, card number etc).  The captured payment details are sent automatically to the merchant for completion.  Once the transaction is completed, the caller is connected back with the agent to complete the call.

If you’re looking to implement call recording and you’re not sure about the relevant compliance which you’ll need to adhere to, contact your industry authority for further information on specific regulations and legislations.