Many businesses use customer support software that may include call recording features to help ensure a better customer service experience. A California federal court dismissed a wiretapping lawsuit filed against a software company offering this software tool (TalkDesk), holding that TalkDesk’s alleged recording of customers’ conversations with clothing retailers “is simply not private or personal enough to confer [Article III] standing.” See Lien, et al., v. Talkdesk, Inc., No. 24-CV-06467-VC, 2025 WL 551664 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 19, 2025).
The lawsuit arose from two clothing retailers’ alleged use of TalkDesk’s software tool to help record and analyze customer service calls. As a result of these retailers’ use of this tool, plaintiffs alleged that TalkDesk recorded their conversations with customer support representatives about store hours, product purchases, and the like. Plaintiffs asserted a claim under section 631 of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”), based on the theory that TalkDesk unlawfully intercepted their communications with the clothing retailers without their consent. According to plaintiffs, this alleged conduct harmed them because Talkdesk “infringed their interests in controlling their personal, private information.”
The Court granted TalkDesk’s motion to dismiss without leave to amend because “there is no way that the plaintiffs’ asserted harm could constitute a concrete injury sufficient for Article III standing.” A “concrete injury” must bear a “close relationship” to harms “traditionally recognized” as providing a basis for a lawsuit. That is a problem for plaintiffs, the Court reasoned, because the “best common law analog” is a claim for intrusion upon seclusion, which requires an intrusion that is “highly offensive to the reasonable person.” In other words, Article III standing “depends on whether the information at issue”—“plaintiffs’ phone numbers and questions about store hours, events, and products carried by the retailers”—“is actually personal and private,” and the Court concluded that it was not.