Recording Phone Calls with Businesses?

Question

What is the legality of recording a call (in the UK) when you are on the phone as a consumer to your bank/service provider/phone company etc?

As they always state they may record calls for training purposes do you also have to inform them or is the fact that one party has already confirmed/informed that it is being recorded enough?

Also, once you have a recording, what can you do with it? Can you post it on the web? Or just a transcript of this? Or is it just evidence you can use to throw back at them?

And if you are not allowed to secretly record your dealings how come consumer programs (such as Watchdog) can?

Answer 1

It's not illegal to record your own phone calls in the UK without telling the other party, but if you don't tell them, the recording can't be used as evidence at trial.

Watchdog and the like can do it because they don't intend to use the tapes at trial, just on their TV shows.

Richard