The permissions the Android app needs

Android deliberately gives ordinary applications silence during a call. That is a platform-level protection, and no app can work around it. The way an app is permitted to capture during a call is an accessibility service, which the agent switches on from Android’s own Accessibility list.

That is what Call capture access is. Qualitify reads nothing on the screen through it — it is used for permission to capture audio while a call is in progress, and nothing else.

It is also the permission most likely to be revoked by a system update, which is why checking the setup screen after an Android upgrade is worth the ten seconds.

What the recording is actually made from. Android hands no application the call stream itself, so the handset records what its microphone hears — both sides of the conversation, with the person holding the phone louder.

This is a property of the platform rather than a shortcoming of the app, and it is why the desktop recorder produces better audio where you have the choice.

So the app knows a call started, which way it went, how long it lasted and who it was with. Without it, a recording — if one happened at all — would arrive with no idea whom it was with or whether the agent called out or picked up.

Only call metadata is read. Contacts are not uploaded, and the name attached to a call is whatever the phone already displayed.

The permanent notice saying collection is running. Two reasons it is not optional: Android requires a visible notification for a service that runs in the background and will stop one that has none, and it is how an agent can always tell that recording is on.

Recording is never silent on the phone. That is deliberate, and this permission is the part that makes it true.

A different thing, despite the similar name, and the reason WhatsApp calls are noticed at all. WhatsApp, Telegram and Viber announce an incoming or ongoing call in the notification shade and nowhere else an app can see.

Granted

WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber and SIM calls are all noticed and recorded.

Declined

Ordinary SIM calls still work. App calls — which for most teams is the point — are not noticed.

Marked recommended rather than required because the app still does something useful without it. For a team recording WhatsApp calls, treat it as required.

So a manufacturer’s power saver does not stop the collector halfway through a shift. Android’s own power management is usually fine; the aggressive layers some manufacturers add on top are not.

Lets the app pick up a recording the handset’s own dialer wrote. Some phones record SIM calls themselves, at better quality than a microphone can manage, and where that exists it is worth using.

Declining it costs nothing except that improvement. It does not stop the app recording through the microphone as normal, and the app reads only audio files in the dialer’s own recordings folder.

Do the first phone with the agent

Seven prompts in a row is where a rollout stalls. An agent working through them alone declines one — usually accessibility, because it sounds alarming — and ends up with calls that record nothing. Fifteen minutes with the first person tells you exactly what to say to the rest.

Explain the accessibility one

It is the prompt that gives people pause, and reasonably: Android’s own wording for accessibility services is broad. Worth saying plainly that it is used for permission to record during a call and that the app reads nothing on screen.

Check the setup screen after updates

• Android upgrades sometimes revoke accessibility permissions.
• A new phone starts from nothing.
• The app lists what is missing, so this is a glance rather than an investigation.

Then make a test call on each handset — see Installing the Android app.