Recording calls with the LA or school

Are you allowed to record? Yes — for your own use.

UK law (the UK GDPR, Article 6(1)(f)) permits an individual to record their own conversations for their own personal or domestic purposes. Recital 18 of the GDPR — sometimes called the "household exemption" — confirms that processing personal data for purely personal activity is outside the scope of GDPR enforcement.

That means:

• You do not have to ask the LA's permission to record a call you are part of.
• You do not have to tell them the call is being recorded — though it is courteous, and usually changes the LA's tone for the better.
• Once you decide to share or use the recording as evidence (with an advocate, solicitor, or the SEND Tribunal), you should be ready to defend the processing under GDPR. Recordings of statutory decisions about your child meet the "necessary for legal claims" threshold easily.

How to actually record

The cheapest meaningful win is usually the recorder built into your phone's dialler. If your phone doesn't have one, a third-party app or a transcription-only service works just as well.

Android — built-in (no app needed)

Most modern Android phones have a recorder right inside the Phone (dialler) app. The exact wording differs by manufacturer.

1. Pixel (Android 11+): open the Phone app → tap the three-dot menu → Settings → Call recording. Turn on "Always record" or "Record selected numbers" and add the LA / SENCO. During a call you'll see a Record button on the in-call screen. Recording and transcript stay on-device.
2. Samsung (One UI 6+): during a call, tap the three-dot menu → Record call. To turn it on for every call, go to Phone → Settings → Record calls. Recordings save to My Files → Internal storage → Call.
3. Xiaomi / Redmi (HyperOS) and OnePlus / Realme (OxygenOS): similar — long-press the in-call menu and pick Record, or enable in Phone → Settings → Call recording.
4. If your phone doesn't have a built-in recorder, install Cube ACR (free) or TapeACall (paid) from the Play Store.

iPhone — built-in (iOS 18.1 and later)

Apple shipped a system call recorder in iOS 18.1. It works on iPhone 15 Pro / Pro Max and every iPhone 16. The recording and transcript stay on-device.

1. During a phone call, tap the new Record button in the top-left of the in-call screen. iOS plays an audible prompt to both parties — that satisfies any courtesy expectation.
2. End the call as normal. The recording lands in the Notes app under "Call Recordings", with an automatically generated transcript and summary.
3. Export the audio (Notes → Share → Save to Files) or copy the transcript text to paste into your SENguru contact log.

On older iPhones Apple still doesn't allow third-party apps to tap the cellular voice path. Workarounds:

• Use Rev Call Recorder (free record, paid transcribe) or TapeACall Pro — both place a 3-way conference call so the second leg can be recorded.
• Or put the call on speakerphone and use a second device (any laptop or tablet running Otter.ai or the iPhone Voice Memos app).

Desktop / video calls (Teams, Zoom)

• Use the platform's built-in record button. Both Teams and Zoom now produce a transcript automatically.

Just need a transcript?

If you've already got a recording (e.g. from your phone's voice memo on speakerphone), you can run it through a transcription service:

• OpenAI Whisper API, Google Cloud Speech-to-Text, AWS Transcribe: machine transcription, ~£0.005–£0.02 per minute, strong British-English accent quality.
• Otter.ai: live transcript in-app on a phone or laptop.
• Rev: human-checked transcripts at ~£1.30 per minute. Slower but more reliable for tribunal-bound recordings.

After the call — what to do with the recording

• Log a contact in SENguru with type Phone call and paste in the transcript. SENguru will run its legal-reference detector over the text and flag any provisions the LA cited.
• Save the audio file alongside your written records — keep it somewhere you control (your own phone or cloud account), not on a service the LA can later request access to.
• Tribunal evidence: tribunals routinely accept transcripts plus the audio file. Quote specific timestamps in your statement so the panel can jump to the relevant exchange.
• Subject access: the LA staff member's voice is also personal data. Don't post the recording publicly. If you want to share it on a parent-support forum, share the transcript with names redacted instead.

Legal references

• UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f) — legitimate interests as a lawful basis for processing personal data.
• GDPR Recital 18 — the household / personal-purpose exemption; processing for purely personal activities is outside the regulation's scope.
• Data Protection Act 2018, s.179 — covers processing personal data for the purpose of legal claims.
• ICO guidance, "Recording your own conversations" — current ICO position confirming the personal-use exemption.