Processing sensitive information by a contact centre

A method of processing telephone calls by a telephone system comprising a call processor, a secure data collection server and an on demand appliance, the method comprising the steps of:

• a) receiving a call from a caller via a telephone network at the call processor;
• b) connecting the call to an agent via the call processor;
• c) the agent liaising with a secure data collection server by:
• connecting to the secure data collection server;
• and receiving a unique identifier from the secure data collection server, the unique identifier identifying the agent session;
• d) transferring the call to the secure data collection server while the agent remains connected to the call processor by:
• connecting to the on demand appliance;
• the on demand appliance initiating a telephone call to the secure data collection server;
• the on demand appliance sending the unique identifier to the secure data collection server by sending a command to the telephone network to divert the call to the secure data collection server and to pass the unique identifier to the secure data collection server;
• and
• e) receiving said transferred call and unique identifier from the secure data collection server and using the unique identifier received from the secure data collection server to re-connect said call back to the agent via the call processor, the secure data collection server being configured to remove sensitive data from data transmitted during the call such that the agent cannot perceive or record any sensitive data entered by the caller.