Recording meetings: consent, the law and good practice

This is general information, not legal advice. Laws differ by country and state, they change, and the details of your situation matter. If you are unsure, ask a lawyer or your data protection officer. Every legal statement below links to its source, checked on 28 September 2026.

AI note takers made recording meetings effortless, and that is exactly why the question comes up so often: is it legal? The short answer is that it depends on where you and the other people are, but one habit keeps you on the right side almost everywhere: tell everyone at the start and get their consent.

One-party and all-party consent in the United States

In the US, recording conversations is governed by federal law and by each state’s own law.

Federal law is “one-party consent”. It is not unlawful for a person to intercept a communication “where such person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent”, unless it is done to commit a crime or a tort (18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d)).

Some states require every party’s consent. A few examples we checked on the states’ own sites:

• California makes it an offence to record a confidential communication “without the consent of all parties” (Penal Code § 632).
• Washington prohibits recording a private conversation “without first obtaining the consent of all the participants”. Consent counts as given when one party announces, in any reasonably effective way, that the conversation is about to be recorded, and the announcement is itself recorded (RCW 9.73.030).
• Florida allows interception “when all of the parties to the communication have given prior consent” (Fla. Stat. § 934.03).

Other states follow the one-party rule. New York, for example, defines eavesdropping by mechanical overhearing as recording a conversation “without the consent of at least one party thereto, by a person not present thereat” (N.Y. Penal Law § 250.00).

A video call easily spans several states or countries. Rather than work out which law applies to whom, the practical course is to meet the strictest standard: everyone is told, and everyone agrees.

The EU and EEA: GDPR

In Europe, a recording of people’s voices is personal data, and the General Data Protection Regulation applies (Regulation (EU) 2016/679). A few of its principles matter most for recording meetings:

• Transparency. Personal data must be “processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner in relation to the data subject” (Article 5(1)(a)). A secret recording fails this test.
• A legal basis. Recording needs one of the grounds in Article 6, such as consent or legitimate interests. Which one fits depends on why you record and who you are.
• Informing people. When data is collected from people, they must be told who is recording, why, the legal basis, how long it is kept and what their rights are, at the time it is collected (Article 13).
• Not longer than necessary. Data should be kept “for no longer than is necessary for the purposes” (Article 5(1)(e)).

Iceland

Iceland applies the GDPR through the Data Protection Act, No. 90/2018 (lög nr. 90/2018). Two sources are worth knowing:

• The Electronic Communications Act, No. 70/2022, Article 91, says a party to a phone call who wants to record it must tell the other person at the start. There is no need to announce it separately when the other person clearly knows already (lög nr. 70/2022).
• Persónuvernd, the Icelandic Data Protection Authority, ruled in 2019 that a secret audio recording of a conversation in a Reykjavík bar broke data protection law, pointing to the requirement that data be processed lawfully, fairly and transparently, and ordered the recording deleted (case no. 2018/1741, in Icelandic).

The United Kingdom: the ICO

The UK has its own version of the GDPR. The Information Commissioner’s Office says you can record video calls, including people’s voices, “where you have a valid purpose that can’t be achieved using less intrusive methods eg taking minutes of meetings”, and that “before recording, you should tell people why you’re recording, what you’ll use it for, and how long you’ll keep it” (ICO, data sharing advice for small organisations).

At work: employees and colleagues

Recording at work raises extra questions, because an employee cannot easily say no to their employer.

• The European Data Protection Board says that, given the imbalance of power, employees can give free consent only in exceptional circumstances, when refusing has no adverse consequences (EDPB Guidelines 05/2020 on consent). An employer that records meetings as a matter of policy will usually need another legal basis, and must still inform people.
• The ICO’s guidance on monitoring workers covers when monitoring at work is lawful and what workers should be told.
• If your company has a policy on recording meetings, follow it. If it does not, ask before you start recording colleagues routinely.

Can you record a Teams meeting without consent?

Don’t. When you use the recording button in Microsoft Teams, every participant gets a notification, and Microsoft itself notes that “depending on your region, you may need everyone’s permission before you can record them” (Microsoft Support).

A recorder on your own computer, including an AI note taker without a bot, does not trigger that Teams notice. So the responsibility to tell people moves to you. The same goes for Zoom, Google Meet and every other app.

Good practice for recording any meeting

Whatever the law where you are, these habits protect you and the people you meet with:

1. Announce it at the start. Say that you are recording, why, and what happens to the recording.
2. Put it in the invite and the chat. People who join late or cannot hear well still get told.
3. Keep a record of consent. Note when you told people and how.
4. Let people object. If someone does not want to be recorded, stop, or take notes by hand for that part.
5. Store recordings securely. Keep them where only the people who need them can reach them.
6. Delete them when you no longer need them. A transcript and notes are often enough to keep.

How Hearkeeper builds this in

Hearkeeper is a Mac app that records your microphone and your computer’s audio, with no bot in the call. Because nothing announces it for you, we built the announcement into the app:

• A consent step before every recording. You read a short notice aloud, post it in the chat, or both.
• A consent receipt with every recording. It stores when and how people were told, so you can always show who knew and when.
• A recording pill that is always visible. It sits on top of your screen, shows up in screen shares and screenshots, and cannot be hidden. There is no invisible mode.
• Recordings stay on your Mac. Transcripts, summaries and search run on your computer, and nothing is uploaded unless you connect a team server or your own API key.

Hearkeeper is not released yet; it comes to the Mac first (macOS 14.2 or later). What the website collects is on the privacy page.

If you want meeting notes that everyone in the room knows about, join the waitlist.