Yes: with the app installed on your child's phone, your dashboard keeps the call log and the audio of the conversations. Legally it is the most sensitive feature in the product, because a call has a second person on it who does not know they are being recorded: in several countries and in several U.S. states, consent from all parties is required, and being their father or mother does not settle that part on its own. It is worth checking the law in your jurisdiction before turning it on. Recording an adult's calls without their consent is a crime.
Call recording is the feature most worth thinking about before you turn it on, and not because of what it records —that part is simple— but because of who ends up recorded besides your child. Here is what is stored, which plan you need and where the limits are.
That is the real difference between recording calls and reading the messages that arrive on your child's phone. The messages are on a device you administer, belonging to a minor in your care. A call, by contrast, always includes a second person —a classmate, a relative, a stranger— who did not give their consent, and several legal systems treat it separately: in some countries and in several U.S. states, consent from all parties is required; in others, one party's consent is enough. We are not going to tell you what applies in your case —that would be legal advice and we do not give it— but we will tell you that this feature calls for checking beforehand in a way the others do not.
They are two different things. One is the call log: number, contact name if it is saved, incoming or outgoing, duration and time. That record is usually enough for what a parent is looking for —an unknown number that turns up every day, calls at three in the morning— and it is far less invasive than the audio. The other is the recording, which is stored so you can listen to it later from any browser. None of this is retroactive: neither the audio nor the log from before the installation can be recovered. With one limit worth knowing: captured data is deleted automatically after 3 months.
It is installed once on the minor's Android phone —Android 8.0 or higher, no root— with the phone in your hands: it cannot be done remotely or “with just the number”. After that, everything is checked from your dashboard, at cp.catwatchful.com. The app works in the background, it does not add an icon to the home screen or show notifications that interrupt, and uninstalling it requires the account holder's password. None of that makes it a secret, nor is it meant to be one.
The 26 features are split across three plans: Medium (29 USD, one month, one device) includes 19, Gold (49 USD, two months, two devices) includes 25, and Platinum (99 USD, twelve months, three devices) includes all 26. Since Medium leaves seven out, check on the pricing page that recording is in the plan you are going to choose. There are three days of free trial with no card, and they are worth using for exactly that: Android has changed the rules for access to call audio several times and not every manufacturer applies them the same way, so what happens on that phone is what counts, not what this page says.
Location or the app usage log can go along with a kid's everyday use of the phone; the audio of their conversations cannot. Recording makes sense when there is a concrete reason —an unknown adult who keeps calling them, signs of grooming or of extortion, harassment under way— and for as long as that risk lasts. Beyond that, the log usually gives you the useful information without recording other people: if you are in doubt, start there. And in any case, tell your child that the phone is supervised and what is supervised: knowing the rules in advance puts them in a very different position from finding out by accident. Recording their conversations permanently, with no reason and without having told them, erodes the trust you are trying to protect. With an adult there is no nuance to discuss: recording their calls without their consent is a crime in almost every country, and that is not what this product exists for.
It depends on your country or state, and on a condition that does not depend on you: the other person on the call. Where all-party consent applies, recording someone who does not know about it is illegal even if the phone belongs to your underage child. We do not give legal advice; we publish guides with the sources cited.
No. What we offer is the recording: the audio goes to your dashboard and you listen to it afterwards. We do not promise live listening.
No. Neither the audio nor the earlier log can be recovered: the record starts the day you set the app up.
Then this is not the product. CatWatchful is a parental control tool for underage children in your care, and recording an adult's calls without their consent is a crime in almost every country.
As a rule, yes, and that is what we recommend in all our guides. With calls there is an extra reason: if your child knows, they can tell the person they are speaking to, and that notice to both parties is what the strictest laws require.
Keep reading: Is it legal to supervise my child's phone? · Signs of grooming and cyberbullying · Which features each plan includes