Before you record other people
Telling people first, why the rules differ by country, and how to remove a recording you should not have made.
Tell people first
Say it out loud at the start, before you press Record: "I'm going to record this so I get the notes right — any objections?"
It takes five seconds, it is on the recording itself if the question ever comes up, and it gives anyone who is uncomfortable the chance to say so. Almost nobody objects. The people who do usually have a reason worth hearing.
If someone does object, do not record. Take notes instead, or ask Orsola to help you write them up afterwards.
The rules differ depending on where you are
Whether you may record a conversation, and whose permission you need, is set by law where you and the other people are — and those laws genuinely differ. In some places one participant agreeing is enough. In others everyone has to agree, and recording without that is a criminal matter, not a matter of etiquette.
Two things make this harder than it looks: a call with people in different countries can be subject to more than one set of rules, and your employer may have its own policy that is stricter than the law.
We cannot tell you what applies to you — that depends on where everyone is and what the conversation is. What we can say is that announcing it and getting a clear yes is the approach that keeps you on the right side of nearly every version of these rules. If you are recording something sensitive, or you are unsure, ask whoever handles this at your organisation.
Where the recording is kept, and who can see it
A recording belongs to your account. It is not shared with the other people in the meeting, it is not published anywhere, and nobody else can browse it — Orsola has no shared workspace, so there is no team folder it might appear in.
The audio, the transcript and anything you generated from it are all stored together and all covered by the same privacy terms as the rest of your data. Sharing a meeting with somebody else is not something Orsola can do today.
Who can see your chats, files, and recordings covers this across everything, and download a copy of your data is how you get your own copy out.
Delete a recording you should not have made
If you recorded something you should not have — someone objected afterwards, or it captured more than you intended — remove it rather than leaving it:
- Open Meeting and find it in the list.
- Choose Delete Meeting from its menu.
- Confirm. The meeting and its recording are permanently deleted.
This cannot be undone, which is the point — it removes the audio and the transcript together. If you want to keep a record of what was agreed but not the recording itself, download or copy the summary out first, then delete.
Deleting quickly and telling the person you have done it is usually the whole of putting it right.
Where to go next
Record a meeting if you are set, and who can see your chats, files, and recordings for the wider picture on your data.