Product and intended use
Define the configuration, people, information and tasks being assessed.
Product and plan covered
Public claim only
The product page (read 2026-09-27) describes FTR RealTime as a component of FTR Justice Cloud that delivers a live speech-to-text feed synced with multi-channel audio. Related products in the same range, each with its own page, are FTR Gold (on-premises recording, with a separately purchasable Annotation Suite and a downloadable FTR Player), the FTR Justice Cloud App, the Justice Cloud Recorder, a Portable Kit published at /products/ftr-realtime-go-recorder, and Courtroom Modernization Services. A separate Automatic Summarization page is published in the use-case navigation and is not described as part of RealTime.
Ask: Is FTR RealTime licensed separately from FTR Justice Cloud, what does a court's subscription include, and is Automatic Summarization part of it or a separate purchase?
What the product does
Public claim only
The product page (read 2026-09-27) states the product produces a live speech-to-text feed synchronised with multi-channel audio running seconds behind the spoken word to allow processing of multiple speakers; automatically detects and transcribes over 130 languages and dialects with instant language detection across talkers and channels and transcript regeneration using the correct language model; identifies speakers and attributes speech during overtalk; produces an instantaneous keyword-searchable draft transcript; displays live transcription across multiple screens through a Display App; automatically tags recordings with case details, hearing times and linked case records; records and plays back audio immediately for clarification and jury playback; offers visual verification of recording; and stores output in the cloud automatically. The language count is stated inconsistently on the same page as "137 languages and counting", "over 130 languages and dialects" and "130+", so no single figure is recorded here.
Ask: Which language and dialect models cover Australian English, and what is the published list of supported languages with the version of each model?
Deployment and hosting
Public claim only
The product page (read 2026-09-27) describes the product as powered by FTR Justice Cloud with output stored securely in the cloud automatically, and the company's separate on-premises product is FTR Gold. No cloud provider, region, country or data-residency option is named on the product page, the security page or the Global Presence page, so where processing and storage occur is not established. The trust centre at trust.fortherecord.com, which could carry that information, could not be fetched on 2026-09-27.
Ask: In which country and region does FTR Justice Cloud store recordings and transcripts for an Australian court, where does speech recognition run, and is an Australian region available?
Jurisdictions served
Public claim only
The Global Presence page (read 2026-09-27) states the company operates "in over 80 countries, spanning six continents, including North and South America, Australia, Europe, Africa and Asia", and the interactive map on that page did not render in the scrape. The product page positions the product as supporting accessibility obligations under Title II of the United States Americans with Disabilities Act and as reducing reliance on stenographic resources, and every participating-court page listed in the site's URL map is a United States jurisdiction. No Australian court, tribunal or jurisdiction is named on any page read.
Ask: Which Australian courts or tribunals use FTR RealTime today, and is the automated live transcript treated as part of the official record in any of them?
Vendor content directing how AI describes the product
Not confirmed
No page or block telling AI models, assistants or crawlers how to describe the product was found on the four For The Record pages read on 2026-09-27 (the product page, the security page, the Policies page and the Global Presence page), and no /llms.txt, /ai-info or /for-ai URL appeared in the 40-result site map made in the earlier research pass. No such URL was fetched, so absence elsewhere on the site is not established. The security page does carry comparative claims about other companies in the court-recording industry, which are marketing statements and are not recorded as facts here.
Ask: Does For The Record publish any page or embedded block instructing AI assistants or crawlers how to describe its products, and if so where?
Data, controls and requirements
Compare the actual configuration with firm, client and jurisdiction requirements, supported by evidence.
Client authority and whose data it is
Not confirmed
The privacy policy summary on the Policies page (last updated May 2024, read 2026-09-27) states it covers individuals who purchase from, supply to, visit the websites of, or otherwise engage with the For The Record Group; it does not on its face address the persons whose speech is recorded in a courtroom. The full notice is published as a PDF, which was not read, and no page read addresses the authority under which hearing participants' voices and words are captured, stored and displayed, or who controls that data as between the court and the vendor.
Ask: For a hearing recorded with FTR RealTime, who is the controller of participants' voice recordings and transcripts, what notice is given to participants, and what does the contract say about privileged exchanges captured on the record?
Recognition models and model providers
Public claim only
The product page (read 2026-09-27) sets out the pipeline: "At its core, FTR RealTime harnesses advanced automatic speech recognition (ASR), underpinned by artificial intelligence, to capture, process, and transcribe courtroom speech"; audio is captured and filtered to isolate speech, then "Advanced machine learning models then analyze the processed or cleaned audio, break it down into smaller sound units, and map those units to the most probable sequence of words", followed by natural language processing that "interprets context and meaning", with multi-pass processing for accents, dialects, multiple languages, legal terminology and overlapping dialogue. No model, model family or foundation-model provider is named anywhere on the pages read, and no statement says whether the models are the vendor's own or licensed.
Ask: Name the speech recognition and language models used, whose models they are, the legal entity operating each, and the country in which inference runs for an Australian hearing.
Subprocessors
Not confirmed
No subprocessor list is published on any page read, and no register URL appears on the security page, the Policies page or the product page. The privacy policy summary on the Policies page names no third parties, and the full notice PDF dated May 2024 was not read. The trust centre at trust.fortherecord.com, the usual location for such a list, could not be fetched on 2026-09-27; every scraping engine failed.
Ask: Provide the current dated subprocessor register for FTR Justice Cloud and FTR RealTime, including the cloud provider and any speech recognition, translation or review vendor, with each entity's country and function.
Training on customer content
Not confirmed
Nothing on any page read states whether courtroom audio, transcripts or corrections are used to train, tune or improve the recognition models. The product page describes multi-pass processing and transcript regeneration using the correct language model but says nothing about model training on customer content, and the security page addresses confidentiality and integrity without addressing training. The Terms and Conditions PDF dated October 2025 and the full privacy notice PDF dated May 2024, which are the documents that would answer this, were not read.
Ask: Is courtroom audio, transcript text or transcriber correction data ever used to train, tune or evaluate your models or a supplier's models, and will you contract that it is not?
Corrections and feedback
Not confirmed
Nothing read describes what happens to corrections made to a draft transcript, or to annotations that the product page says court staff can add to hearings as they happen. No feedback clause, telemetry description or opt-out appears on the pages read; the Terms and Conditions PDF was not read.
Ask: Where do transcript corrections and hearing annotations go, are they used for anything beyond the individual hearing record, and can that be switched off?
Retention
Not confirmed
No retention period for recordings, draft live transcripts or final transcripts appears on any page read. The product page states output is stored securely in the cloud automatically and describes a separate Cloud Storage use case, which was not read, and the privacy policy summary on the Policies page states no retention period. The full privacy notice PDF dated May 2024 and the Terms and Conditions PDF dated October 2025 were not read.
Ask: State the default and configurable retention for recordings, draft transcripts, final transcripts, annotations and audit logs, and whether a court can set its own retention schedule.
Deletion and certified erasure
Not confirmed
No deletion process, period or certification is described on any page read. The security page instead emphasises immutability of the record, stating that digital checksums ensure the record is never altered, that audit architecture preserves chain-of-custody histories, and that no recording can be uploaded without a strict, auditable process, which is a preservation design rather than a deletion commitment. Whether and how a court can have material deleted, for example following a suppression or non-publication order, is unverified.
Ask: How is a recording or transcript deleted when a court orders it, within what period, is deletion certified, and how does that interact with the checksum and chain-of-custody design?
Vendor access to content
Not confirmed
No statement about vendor personnel access to recordings or transcripts appears on any page read. The security page describes role-based access controls "so only authorized individuals can access recordings and transcripts" and audit logging for full system traceability, but does not say whether vendor staff or contractors are among those individuals, from which countries they work, or whether a court can see those access logs. The security page notes CJIS requirements include background checks and signed security addendums, which describes the framework rather than the vendor's own staffing commitments.
Ask: Can For The Record personnel or contractors access a court's recordings and transcripts, from which countries, under what approval, and will a court receive logs of that access?
Access control and audit
Public claim only
The security page (read 2026-09-27) lists role-based access controls so that only authorised individuals can access recordings and transcripts, audit logging for full system traceability, digital checksums so the record is never altered, and secure replication and access through FTR Justice Cloud. The product page states authorised participants can follow, search and engage with the record in the courtroom or remotely. No single sign-on, multi-factor authentication requirement, role list or exportable audit log format is described on the pages read.
Ask: Does FTR Justice Cloud support single sign-on and enforced multi-factor authentication, what roles exist, and can a court export its own audit log of who opened which hearing?
Encryption
Public claim only
The security page (read 2026-09-27) states "Encryption of data in transit and at rest" and lists digital checksums, audit logging and role-based access controls alongside it, and states that the CJIS framework it aligns with imposes strict requirements for encryption, user access controls, audit logs and background checks. No algorithm, TLS version, key-management description or customer-managed key option is published on any page read, and the trust centre could not be fetched.
Ask: Confirm the encryption algorithms and TLS versions used for courtroom audio and transcripts in transit and at rest, who holds the keys, and whether customer-managed keys are available.
Independent assurance
Public claim only
The security page (read 2026-09-27) states FTR Justice Cloud holds or aligns with CJIS, SOC 2 Type 2, NIST 800-53 Rev. 5 (described as more than 1,200 controls), the Cloud Security Alliance Cloud Controls Matrix (197 controls across 17 domains) and UK Cyber Essentials. No report, certificate, auditor name, scope statement or date is published for any of them on the pages read, and the site navigation separately carries a vendor news item titled "For The Record Announces SOC 2 Type 1 Compliance", which names a different SOC 2 type from the security page; that article was not read and neither item is dated on the pages read. No Australian assurance such as an IRAP assessment is claimed. The trust centre, where such reports are usually held, could not be fetched. SOC 2: the vendor's own page states "ad-innerpage-graphic-bottom.png) 2 MIN READ May 8, 2024 - SHARE: # Celebrating For The Record’s SOC 2 Type 2 Compliance Milestone [Company News](https://fortherecord.com/resource-t" (https://fortherecord.com/resource/soc-2-type-2-compliance/, checked 2026-10-10).
Ask: Provide the current SOC 2 Type 2 report with scope, auditor, period and exceptions, the CJIS and Cyber Essentials evidence, and state whether any Australian assurance such as an IRAP assessment exists.
Contract, DPA, liability and forum
Not confirmed
The Policies page (read 2026-09-27) links Terms and Conditions last updated October 2025 as a downloadable PDF, which was not read, so the governing law, forum, liability cap and any AI-specific terms are unverified. No data processing agreement is published or linked on any page read. The privacy policy names the contracting group as FTR Pty Ltd, FTR Limited, FTR Labs Pty Ltd and FTR Group Pty Ltd without saying which entity contracts with a customer, and no ACN, ABN or registered office appears anywhere read; the page footers carry only "Copyright 2026. All Rights Reserved." with no entity named.
Ask: Which For The Record entity contracts with an Australian court or firm, what is its ACN or ABN, what governing law and forum apply, what is the liability cap, and is there a data processing agreement?
Cross-border transfers and APP 8
Not confirmed
No hosting country, processing location or transfer mechanism is published on any page read. The Global Presence page states operations in over 80 countries including Australia without naming any data centre, and the security page frames compliance around United States federal standards (CJIS, NIST 800-53) and UK Cyber Essentials, naming no Australian framework and no residency option. Neither the Privacy Act 1988, the Australian Privacy Principles nor APP 8 appears on any page read.
Ask: List every country in which Australian courtroom audio, transcripts, backups, support access and model inference occur, and state whether an Australia-only configuration can be contracted for.
Incident notification
Not confirmed
No breach or incident notification commitment appears on any page read. The security page describes engineering audit architecture to detect anomalous behaviour and collaboration with cybersecurity experts, but sets no notification period, names no recipient, and does not mention the Australian Notifiable Data Breaches scheme or the OAIC. The Terms and Conditions PDF and the full privacy notice PDF, which would carry any commitment, were not read, and no incident history is published on the pages read.
Ask: What is the contractual notification period from discovery of an incident affecting a court's recordings, who is notified, and have there been any material incidents in the last 24 months?
Change notice for models, terms and processors
Not confirmed
The Policies page (read 2026-09-27) states only that the current version of the Terms of Service can be reviewed on that page at any time, and gives dates of May 2024 for the privacy policy and October 2025 for the terms; it states no notice obligation. The vendor publishes release notes and a subscription to them at fortherecord.releasenotes.io, found in the navigation and not fetched, which is a product-change channel rather than a contractual notice. Nothing read commits the vendor to notify a court before the recognition model, the hosting location or a subprocessor changes. The site navigation also carries news item titles indicating an acquisition by Tyler Technologies, which was not read and for which no change-of-control notice term was found.
Ask: What advance written notice will a court receive before the recognition model, hosting location, subprocessors or the contracting entity change, and does the acquisition trigger any change-of-control right?
Export and exit
Not confirmed
No export or exit terms appear on any page read. The product page states output is stored in the cloud automatically and describes search and playback within the platform, and a downloadable FTR Player is offered from the store for the on-premises product, but nothing read says in what format a court can extract its recordings, time-synchronised transcripts and speaker metadata on exit, or what happens to them afterwards. The Terms and Conditions PDF was not read.
Ask: On exit, in what formats can a court extract every recording, time-synchronised transcript, annotation and audit log, over what period, at what cost, and what is then deleted?
Connectors and case-system links
Public claim only
The product page (read 2026-09-27) states recordings are automatically tagged with case details, hearing times and linked case records, and a release note title in the site navigation refers to "External References on Cases, Hearings, and People", which indicates a link to an external case system; no integration, API or named case management system is described on any page read. The product page also states the Display App drives live transcription across multiple screens, and that authorised participants can follow the record remotely.
Ask: How does FTR Justice Cloud obtain case, hearing and party details, which case management systems are supported, and what data flows in each direction?
Open-web retrieval
Not confirmed
Nothing on any page read describes FTR RealTime retrieving anything from the open web; the described pipeline runs from courtroom audio to text to cloud storage. No vendor statement confirming that the product does not reach the open web was found either, so its absence rests on silence in the material read. The site itself loads Google reCAPTCHA on the pages read, which concerns the website rather than the product.
Ask: Confirm in writing that FTR RealTime and FTR Justice Cloud make no outbound request beyond your own services, and that no hearing content is sent to any public search, translation or web service.
Automated actions
Not confirmed
The product page (read 2026-09-27) describes the product acting on its own in several ways: it automatically detects language and regenerates the transcript using a different language model, automatically tags recordings with case details, hearing times and linked case records, stores output in the cloud automatically, and displays the live draft across multiple courtroom screens and to remote participants. Each of those happens during a hearing without a described confirmation step, and no page read says whether any of them can be turned off or gated.
Ask: Which of the automatic behaviours (language switching and transcript regeneration, case tagging, cloud storage, live display to remote participants) can a court disable or require confirmation for?
Human review before use
Public claim only
The product page (read 2026-09-27) repeatedly labels the live output a draft transcript and states that "the original recording remains the definitive source of truth", and it describes court staff monitoring sessions and annotating hearings as they happen and visual verification of recording for monitoring purposes. It also positions the product as reducing reliance on stenographic resources. No product control that requires a named person to review or certify a transcript before it is distributed or relied on is described on any page read, and no contractual verification obligation was found because the Terms and Conditions PDF was not read.
Ask: What in the product enforces review and certification of a draft transcript before it is distributed, who performs it, and what does the contract say about reliance on the uncorrected live feed?
