What Does a Covert Recording Actually Capture in a Family Case?

Short answer: A covert recording means somebody recorded audio or video without telling the other person. In family cases it is usually a parent recording a handover, a phone call, a social worker’s visit, or their own child. It arrives as a short clip that seems to prove everything. The file it came from is almost always longer, and what surrounds the clip matters as much as the clip. This post is about what these recordings actually contain, and what making them does to a child.

In short:

• A covert recording means one person recorded another without telling them.
• Parents now record handovers, phone calls, professionals’ visits, and their children.
• The clip somebody hands you is rarely the whole file, and the file carries its own date, time and length.
• A child who knows about the recording stops behaving like a child and starts performing.
• The Family Justice Council has published guidance on this, and it is worth reading before the subject comes up.

Why covert recording turns up so often now

Twenty years ago, recording somebody secretly meant buying a device and hiding it. Now it means pressing one button on a phone already in a pocket. Voice memo apps come installed. Video needs no more effort. A doorbell camera records the handover without anybody deciding anything at all.

The Family Justice Council has published guidance on covert recordings in family law proceedings concerning children, written for professionals and for people representing themselves. It followed what the FJC describes as increased use of these recordings in family proceedings. In his foreword, Sir Andrew McFarlane notes that while some covert recordings have been found to have evidential value, their secret nature can intrude on the privacy of parents, children and professionals, and can raise concerns about accuracy.

That last point is the technical one, and it is where the rest of this post sits. What any of it means in a particular case is a question for the solicitors and the professionals instructed.

What a covert recording usually contains

The recording arrives as a clip. Ninety seconds, often less, and it sounds damning.

The first question worth asking is what it was cut from. Very few of these recordings begin ninety seconds before the interesting part. A parent who suspects something starts recording and leaves it running, which means the original file is frequently twenty minutes, or an hour, or the whole afternoon.

What sits around the clip changes how it reads. The five minutes before it may show who raised their voice first. The five minutes after may show an apology, or a perfectly calm conversation, or the same argument again. A clip removes all of that, and a clip is what everybody sees.

The file itself also carries information the clip does not. When it was made. How long the original ran. Whether it is the original file at all, or a copy of a copy, or something re-recorded by holding one phone up to another, which happens more often than people expect and degrades the audio in ways that are audible.

None of that tells anybody what the recording means. It does tell them what they are looking at, which is a different question and usually an unanswered one.

Where these recordings come from

It helps to know the routes, because they change what the recording can and cannot show.

A phone in a pocket picks up cloth, wind and the person holding it far more clearly than anybody two metres away. That is why handover recordings so often have one audible voice and one inaudible one, and the audible one belongs to whoever is holding the phone.

A doorbell camera records the doorstep and about three metres beyond it, usually in short clips triggered by movement, which means gaps. Smart speakers respond to a wake word and do not record continuously, whatever people assume. A call recording app captures both sides but announces itself on some networks and not others.

And then there is the route that matters most in family work: a device in a child’s bag, a child’s own phone left recording, or a child asked to record the other parent.

What recording does to a child

This is the part that gets least attention and does the most damage.

A child who knows a recording might be running behaves differently. They watch what they say. Instead of talking, they manage the conversation. Children are extremely good at working out what an adult wants, so they try to produce whatever they think the recording is for.

A child asked to record a parent carries something heavier again. Somebody has handed them a job that requires deceiving one person they love, then giving the result to another. Whatever the recording shows, that job stays with them.

There is a practical consequence as well as a human one. A recording made through a child captures a child who knows about the recording, which is close to the least reliable evidence anybody could gather. Kids n Clicks covers neighbouring ground in our post on coercive control and our post on post separation abuse.

What family law teams tend to miss on the digital side

None of this reflects on how anybody practises. These files arrive looking simple, and nothing about them announces what is missing. Three points come up often enough to be worth having to hand.

The first is to ask for the original file rather than the clip, along with how long it runs. A client who has cut ninety seconds out of forty minutes is rarely hiding something. She is usually just trying to be helpful, and she has removed the context that made her own case.

The second is to ask what made the recording and where it sat. A phone in a coat pocket, a doorbell, a child’s bag and a laptop on a table produce very different audio, and knowing which one changes what anybody should expect to hear.

The third is to ask whether a child knew. That answer shapes what the recording is worth, and it also tells you something about the household that no recording will.

Where the training fits

The remaining gap is knowledge rather than process, and it changes as fast as the devices do.

Our Digital Dimension in Family Law training covers this properly. It shows what different devices actually capture, how to tell an original file from a copy, what a clip leaves behind, and what recording does to a child who knows it is happening.

The session teaches the technology, not the law. Solicitors already know the law. What often goes missing is a clear read of what actually happened on the phones, the apps and the accounts, and that is the gap this session fills. It is a specialist session, delivered online or in person, to a whole team or to individuals.

If you work in family law, connect with Parven on LinkedIn or get in touch here to book a session for your team.

Parven Kaur is a digital parenting and online safety expert, and the founder of Kids n Clicks. She trains family law teams on the technology side of their cases. She won the Scottish Cyber Security Award, and she sits on the National Board of Advisors for Barnardo’s Scotland.