Securus Technologies’ Statement on NYC DOC Call Recording Issue

For security reasons, the New York City Department of Corrections (NYC DOC) records all calls placed by incarcerated individuals in their facilities to phone numbers unless they are designated to be “private” or “Do-Not-Record” (DNR). This is standard protocol for correctional facilities nationwide designed to protect the health and safety of incarcerated individuals, protect community safety, and help law enforcement solve and prevent crimes. NYC DOC’s DNR list presently includes more than 300,000 unique phone numbers. All calls from NYC DOC to numbers not on the Department’s DNR list are recorded, and each is preceded by an automated notification to the caller—and to the person answering the call—that the call will be recorded and monitored.

Securus® recently became aware that, during a period of increased call traffic resulting from COVID-19, Securus personnel added certain phone numbers to the DNR list for only one NYC DOC site rather than for all NYC DOC sites. This clerical error contributed to accessed recordings of calls placed to a small subset of these phone numbers. The phone numbers adversely impacted represent less than one-tenth of one percent of all numbers on the NYC DOC DNR list.

Securus regrets this clerical error and notes that every impacted caller and call recipient was still notified that their calls would be recorded, and they consented to their calls being recorded by remaining on the calls after hearing the notice. All callers to numbers not on the DNR list received the following automated admonishment at the beginning of each and every call they placed:

“This call is subject to recording and or monitoring. An inmate’s use of institutional telephones constitutes consent and your calls may be provided to law enforcement agencies.”

Likewise, all call recipients at numbers not on the DNR list received an automated admonishment at the beginning of each and every call they received stating:

“This call is subject to recording and or monitoring.”

These admonishments do not play on calls placed to numbers that are on the NYC DOC DNR list.

Securus’ review of the specific adversely impacted phone numbers has revealed that only about half of the accidentally recorded and accessed calls were to attorney phone numbers; the rest were to non-attorneys, such as social workers. Securus’ review was limited to publicly available information about the adversely impacted phone numbers and did not include reviewing the contents of any call.

Upon identifying the error, Securus took immediate steps to block further recording of calls to numbers that should have been placed on the DNR list for all NYC DOC facilities. Securus conducted a review of the previously processed DNR requests to ensure that all numbers were appropriately set to private for all NYC DOC sites. Securus continues to work closely with the NYC DOC and is committed to mitigating any negative impact resulting from this unfortunate incident.

Securus has additionally reviewed its calling records and data to identify the specific dialed telephone numbers and calling parties impacted by this issue and has provided the results of these reviews to NYC DOC.

Importantly, the issue arose from a technical configuration particular to the NYC DOC and does not impact any other of Securus’ facility customers.