Recording Every Call, on Every Number — and What India’s DPDP Act Asks of You

What changed

Until this week, a phone call was recorded only on a number you rented from us. Recording was something the carrier did, on our account, and we could not ask your carrier to record your number.

Now every number records. On a number you imported from Plivo, Vobiz, Twilio or Telnyx, your agent keeps the recording itself: it hears both sides of every call, so nothing has to be switched on at your carrier and your carrier charges you nothing extra. The recording sits with its call in the call log, plays in the browser, and downloads, exactly like any other.

How recording works

• Off until you turn it on. Recording is a switch on each agent's Voice page. Nothing is recorded by default.
• Website calls: the caller sees This call is recorded as the call connects, before anybody speaks.
• Phone calls: on a rented number the carrier records; on an imported number the agent does. Never both — one call, one recording.
• Where to find it: in Usage, with the call's transcript, and through the API.

How long recordings are kept

Recordings are deleted automatically when your plan says: after 30 days on Pay As You Go, 49 on Pro and 75 on Scale. Download anything you need to keep before then. Once a recording is deleted it is gone, and we cannot get it back.

Deleting a person's recordings

Erasing a contact — through the contacts API — deletes their conversations, transcripts and calls, and the recordings of their website calls and of their calls on numbers you brought, within a day. Recordings of their calls on a number you rented from us are held by the carrier and are not removed automatically; contact support to have those deleted.

How we use recordings

On the Pay As You Go plan, call recordings and transcripts may be used by us for model training and internal training. On Pro and above, they never are. If you do not want your calls used this way, move to Pro. Our privacy policy says the same.

What the DPDP Act asks of a business that records calls

India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 covers personal data in digital form. A recording of somebody's voice, and what they said on the call, is personal data about them. The DPDP Rules, 2025, notified on 13 November 2025, set the timetable: the Data Protection Board is already in place, and most of the obligations below apply from 13 May 2027. That is the date to plan for, not a reason to wait.

Under the Act, whoever decides why personal data is processed is a Data Fiduciary. When your business decides to record its customers' calls, you are one for those recordings, and the duties that matter most are yours:

• A reason the Act accepts. The Act allows processing on consent (Section 6) or for a short, fixed list of legitimate uses (Section 7). There is no general "legitimate business interest". For most businesses recording customer calls, that means asking for consent.
• A notice, before or as you record (Section 5, and Rule 3 of the Rules): what you collect, why, and how the person can exercise their rights. On a phone call, the practical place is the start of the call — put it in your agent's first words. On a website call we show the recording line for you, but the wording your business needs is still yours to decide.
• Consent that can be withdrawn as easily as it was given (Section 6(4)).
• Keeping recordings no longer than you need them (Section 8(7)). Automatic deletion by plan helps here; it is a deletion schedule, not a retention policy you set.
• Answering requests to access, correct or erase a person's data (Sections 11 and 12), and a way for them to raise a grievance (Section 13).

Two more things worth knowing. Recording rules exist outside the DPDP Act too, and your sector may have its own. And telling callers they are speaking to an AI is your agent's greeting to write; there is no switch that does it for you.

What we will not claim

• We do not say ThinnestAI is "DPDPA compliant", and no product can make your business compliant on its own. Compliance is what your business does with its notices, consent and requests; software helps with parts of it.
• This post is not legal advice. If you record calls at any scale, have someone qualified look at your notice and consent wording before 13 May 2027.

Turn it on

Open your agent's Voice page, switch on Record calls, and add a line about recording to the agent's opening words. Your next call — on any number — is recorded.

Start recording your agent's calls →