Shoutbox

I noticed and tested that if you are in a video chat; someone can start recording and you are not notified the other party is recording your video conversation.

There should be a message alert to the parties that video call will be recorded or a pop up message asking if you authorize the recording before someone can record.

This is actually breaching users privacy and also there is no legal message stating that if you record without the consent it is against the law at least in the UK.

Can you please fix this issue or explain how you can protect from someone to record unauthorized conversation?

I agree it would be nice to have the warning. In the UK it does require notifying the other party that something is being recorded to comply with the law. However, the requirement is on your part, not the recording software's.

There is really no way to protect against this. If something is sent across the Internet, it is saved across the Internet. Any software installed on either computer would be able to capture the packets of information relating to video chat. (In fact, this was done by the MSN webcam recorder for years). If you are worried someone may record you without your consent, you need to ask if you really want to be video chatting with them (or anybody else) in the first place

In general, when you are a party of the conversation, recording your conversation is legal in many countries or US states. 


Refs:
1. Wiki: Telephone recording laws
2.US: Digital Media Law


If you really care about the privacy of your contacts, Plus! can help. You have a feature to automatically send a chat message when you start recording. In video call, you can even show recording indicator to your contact.

Simple steps:
1. Go to Preferences of recording
2. Check Automatically send a chat message notification when recording starts
3. Check Display recoding indicator

Hope this helps!

quote:

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Originally posted by cooltechnoguy
If you really care about the privacy of your contacts, Plus! can help. You have a feature to automatically send a chat message when you start recording. In video call, you can even show recording indicator to your contact.

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This should be force enabled, not an option IMO. It's an ethical problem, not a legal one for the most part

quote:

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Originally posted by Spunky
This should be force enabled, not an option IMO. It's an ethical problem, not a legal one for the most part

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That's debatable. Enabling the notice by default would be nice. But although I like privacy, I don't believe in forcing things this way.

It reminds me of camera phones which are now forced to make a sound when you take a picture, even when the phone is muted. AFAIK this originated from the UK too (edit: can't find any law around this in the UK, but South Korea as a law on it since 2004 which explains why Samsung does it), but people worldwide are stuck with it. The idea behind it is to prevent pervs from taking questionable pictures of someone else without permission. Truth is, people who are into those kind of things find a way way to disable such sound anyway. Meanwhile people are led to believe they aren't being photographed when they don't hear the sound. It provides a false sense of privacy.

Even if there wasn't any kind of screen capture, nothing stops a person from pointing a video camera at the screen. Ethics are for humans to apply, not for technology to force. Technology can only ask you to be a decent human.

quote:

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Originally posted by Menthix

It reminds me of camera phones which are now forced to make a sound when you take a picture, even when the phone is muted.

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really? Mine doesn't . Im pretty sure that was true in the old days, but i've had 3 different phones in the past few years and none of them made a sound (you could enable or disable it in the settings)

AFAIK at least Samsung still does it on all their top models (Android TouchWiz). Although I run CyanogenMod where it can be disabled.

....and extremely annoying and very disruptive if people take pictures with their phone during an music event or theater performance etc, and that click click sound is played...
(and don't think people wont take pictures because it is 'forbidden' or asked not to at the start of the event)

But back on topic, IMHO I agree with Menthix and disagree with Spunky:
in regards to the display recording indicator:
  forcing it to be always on: no
  enabled by default: yes
in regards to sending a msg when recording starts:
  forcing it to be always on: no
  enabled by default: no