Recording a Meeting: Rules, Consent and Practical Tips
Recording a Meeting: Is It Allowed and How Do You Do It Properly?
The recording is running and the meeting seems to be going smoothly. Until you listen back afterwards. Colleagues are difficult to understand, background noise dominates the conversation and nobody is quite sure whether everyone agreed to being recorded.
Recording a meeting sounds simple, but there is more to it than pressing the record button. Are you allowed to record the conversation? Which method works best? And how do you make sure the recording is actually useful for a transcript or meeting notes afterwards?
A good recording starts with clarity about consent and privacy. Then you need to choose a method that suits the meeting and use a quiet room with good acoustics. .
Can You Record a Meeting? Consent and GDPR
A common question is: can I record a meeting? The answer requires some nuance.
Under Dutch criminal law, secretly recording a conversation by someone who is not participating in that conversation can be a criminal offence in the circumstances described by law. If you are participating in the conversation yourself, the situation is different. However, that does not automatically mean that you can record, store and distribute a business meeting without considering privacy rules.
When an organisation makes a recording in which participants can be identified or heard, personal data may be processed. In that case, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) may apply. The organisation needs, among other things, a valid legal basis and a clear purpose for processing the recording. It should also consider how long the recording will be stored and who can access it.
The safest practical approach is therefore to inform participants beforehand that you want to record the meeting. Explain why you are recording it and how the recording will be used. Depending on the purpose and how the recording is processed, GDPR requirements may apply. Consent can be a legal basis, but it is not automatically the only possible legal basis in every situation.
Are you only using the recording as a memory aid or to create notes? Informing everyone beforehand is still the most transparent approach. If the recording is subsequently stored or shared within an organisation, additional privacy and data protection considerations apply.
Recording a meeting without everyone knowing is therefore not a good starting point for a business meeting. The fact that recording may not automatically constitute a criminal offence when you are a participant does not mean that every subsequent use of that recording is permitted.
If you are recording confidential, employment-related or otherwise sensitive conversations, check which rules apply to your specific situation beforehand. This article provides general information and does not constitute legal advice.
How to Record a Meeting with a Phone, Laptop, Teams or Google Meet
The best method depends largely on the type of meeting. For a small face-to-face discussion, a phone may be sufficient. For hybrid or fully online meetings, the built-in recording functions of your meeting platform are often more practical.
Recording a meeting with your phone is one of the easiest options. You can use the built-in voice recorder or voice memo application, for example. Place the phone centrally on the table rather than directly next to one participant. Otherwise, that person's voice may be much louder than everyone else's.
You can also record a meeting with a laptop during smaller meetings. Keep in mind that a laptop's built-in microphone may struggle to capture someone sitting at the other end of a large table. Make a short test recording beforehand and listen back to it.
If you want to record a meeting in Teams, you can use its built-in recording functionality when it is available for your account and organisation. Microsoft Teams can record audio, video and screen-sharing activity during a meeting. When someone starts recording, all participants are automatically notified.
Who can start or stop a Teams recording depends on factors such as the user's licence, meeting role and organisational settings. In business environments, recordings of non-channel meetings are generally stored in the organiser's OneDrive for Business. Channel meeting recordings are stored in SharePoint.
Searching for a way to record Teams without a notification? The standard built-in recording function is specifically designed to notify participants when recording begins. This also supports the principle of being transparent when recording a meeting.
You can also record a Google Meet meeting using its built-in recording functionality, provided this feature is available for the account and the user has the required permissions. Not every Google Workspace edition offers the same recording capabilities.
When a Google Meet recording starts or stops, participants receive a notification. The recording is stored in the organiser's Meet Recordings folder in Google Drive. The organiser and the person who started the recording subsequently receive a link to the file.
Whichever method you choose, check beforehand whether the recording functionality is available. Test the microphone, check where the file will be stored and make sure you have enough storage space. This prevents you from discovering after an important meeting that the recording is unusable or difficult to find.
From Recording a Meeting to Taking Notes with AI
A recording becomes much more useful when you can easily retrieve information from it afterwards. This is why more teams are combining meeting recording and note-taking with transcription and AI.
The first step is usually creating a transcript. When you record and transcribe a meeting, spoken words are converted into written text. You can then use that transcript to create a summary, list of decisions or overview of action points.
AI can speed up this process. Within Microsoft Teams, transcripts can be used with various summarisation and Copilot features, depending on your subscription and organisational settings.
ChatGPT also offers a recording feature that can transcribe and summarise meetings and voice notes. ChatGPT Record is currently available for Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise and Edu workspaces through the macOS desktop app.
Wondering how to record a meeting with ChatGPT? First check whether Record is available for your account and device. Make sure you also obtain the appropriate consent or otherwise comply with applicable requirements before recording other people.
Afterwards, AI can help turn a long conversation into key topics, action points or next steps. This makes taking meeting notes with AI particularly useful for longer meetings where many decisions are made.
Human review remains essential, however. AI can make mistakes in both transcripts and summaries. Names can be misheard, industry-specific terminology may be interpreted incorrectly and important nuances can be lost.
Always check decisions, deadlines, figures and responsibilities before sharing AI-generated meeting notes. Think of AI as a tool that helps you create a useful report faster, rather than a replacement for final human review.
The Room Determines Whether Your Recording Is Actually Useful
You can use the best recording functionality available, but poor audio remains poor audio. The room in which you meet can therefore have a major impact on the final recording.
A large room with many hard surfaces can create echo. Air conditioning, conversations outside the room or participants sitting far away from the microphone can make speech harder to understand. You may barely notice these sounds during the meeting, but they can become much more noticeable when listening back.
Good acoustics are therefore an important starting point. Next, consider the microphone setup and number of participants. For a small meeting, one centrally positioned microphone may be sufficient. A larger or hybrid meeting may require a more extensive AV setup to capture everyone clearly.
Microphone placement also makes a difference. Avoid placing a laptop or phone at one end of a long table when participants are spread throughout the room. The greater the distance from the microphone, the more likely voices are to become difficult to hear.
It also helps to avoid participants constantly talking over one another. This can already make a live conversation difficult to follow, but it creates an even bigger challenge for automatic transcription.
At Meet Tuesday, we sometimes see the technical side of a meeting receive attention only once the session has already started. Looking at the room, acoustics and required AV setup beforehand helps prevent important conversations from being difficult to understand afterwards.
Want to achieve good sound quality when recording a meeting? Test the equipment beforehand, minimise background noise and choose a room that suits both the number of participants and the way you plan to meet.
A good recording therefore starts long before anyone presses 'record'. Make clear agreements beforehand, choose a recording method that suits your meeting and check the room and technology. This helps prevent ending up with an unintelligible recording or uncertainty about privacy afterwards.
Looking for a well-equipped setting for your next meeting? Explore the meeting rooms at Meet Tuesday and choose a space that suits your meeting.