A telephone apparatus is disclosed which includes a communication circuit (10) including a microphone (15) and a speaker (14) for providing communication between an operator and a network and outputting sound data from the sound receiving unit and the network; a memory card receiving unit (13); a memory card detector (13a); a memory (4) for storing the sound data; a control circuit (2) responsive to the memory card detector and a recording command for storing the sound data in the memory and reading the sound data from the memory only when the memory card is received by the memory card receiving unit. The memory card stores an ID code and the control circuit registers the identification code on recording. When playing is commanded the control circuit inhibits Playing when the ID from the memory card disagrees with any of registered ID codes. When there is no space in the memory, the control circuit writes the sound data over the sound data only when the ID code from the memory card agrees with one of the registered ID codes. The telephone apparatus further includes a serial interface (23) for storing the sound data in the memory in the memory card.