What is an access log?

Logging answers a different question from permissions. Permissions decide who could look; the log records who did.

For call records that distinction has weight. Five people with access to your transcripts is a policy, and knowing which of them read a specific call is a fact.

The logs exist almost everywhere and get read almost nowhere. They surface after an incident, if at all.

Retention applies here too. A log kept for a week cannot answer a question raised a month later, which is when most questions arrive.

Logs are also only as honest as their coverage. A system that records logins and not individual record views will tell you somebody was working that afternoon and nothing about what they opened.

Say your system's log for one transcript shows four lines. At 09:14 your office manager viewed it, two minutes after the call ended. She exported it a minute later. By 13:40 a technician had viewed it from his phone. Then at 23:52 the technician's account viewed it again, along with 61 other transcripts in six minutes.

Those first three lines are a normal workday, and the last one isn't. Nobody reads 62 transcripts in six minutes, so you're looking at a script or somebody scrolling for something. Maybe he shared his password with a friend, or maybe he's leaving and collecting customer numbers first. You can't tell which from the log, but you now know which account to lock and which 62 customers may be affected. Without it, you'd hear about the problem months later from a customer.

Ask whether views are logged or only logins. Many products record that Sam signed in at 9:00 and nothing about what Sam opened. Exports should be logged as their own event, because a view stays on a screen and an export leaves the building. Find out how far back the log goes, too, and whether you can read it yourself or have to open a support ticket.

Shared logins ruin all of it. If three people use one front desk address with one password, every line says "front desk" and the log can't name anyone. Separate accounts cost you a few minutes each.

In a two-person shop where both of you read everything anyway, a log matters little. It starts to matter with your fifth employee, your first contractor, or the first person who leaves on bad terms.

The most effective limit on who reads your call records is how few accounts you create, and that is your decision rather than ours.

Retention shortens the exposure window. Records you no longer keep cannot be read by anyone, logged or otherwise.

GreetKeeper holds no certifications, so treat this as a description of settings rather than as an audited control.