Guide

    Can you record a meeting?

    In the UK, generally yes, as long as you take part in it yourself. Even without consent. What you do with the recording afterwards, at work, in a tribunal or online, is where the real rules live.

    S

    Soren Colton · updated 10 August 2026 · 9 min read

    Short answer

    In the UK you can generally record a meeting or conversation you take part in yourself, even without consent. Recording a conversation you are not part of is a different matter, and so is what you do with the recording afterwards: as soon as it is processed for work, the UK GDPR applies, and covert recording at work will generally count as misconduct.

    Recording as a participant
    Generally lawful in the UK, even without consent
    Recording without taking part
    Interception or covert monitoring; different rules entirely
    Covert recording at work
    Will generally count as misconduct, though tribunals may still admit it
    Using it for work
    UK GDPR applies: lawful basis, tell people, processing agreement
    Courts and tribunals
    Not without permission (contempt of court)

    You want a record of a meeting: an appraisal, a call with a supplier, a project meeting you'll need to come back to. Can you simply press the record button? The short answer is above. Below is the nuance: where the law draws the line, what you can do with the recording, and what to check when an app writes the report for you.

    One thing first: the spine of this page is the United Kingdom. Recording rules differ per country, so there is a world tour further down, and the Dutch rules are on the Dutch version of this page. And this is general information based on the sources listed at the end, not legal advice for your situation.

    The main rule: taking part is what counts.

    UK law does not have a general rule against recording your own conversations. The criminal offence, in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, is interception: capturing a communication in the course of its transmission so that its content becomes available to someone outside it. Someone who takes part in a conversation and records it is not making it available to an outsider. The offence is aimed at eavesdroppers, not at participants.

    That is why the UK is often described as a one-party country: one participant knowing about the recording is enough. You do not need the other side's consent to record a meeting you are in, whether at the table, on the phone or in a video call. There is no general duty to announce it either.

    But being allowed to record is not the same as being allowed to do anything with it. Using the recording at work, sharing it and publishing it each have their own rules, and that is where recordings get people into trouble.

    Three questions tell you where you stand.

    Run through these three questions in order and you have your answer.

    • Do you take part in the conversation?Yes: you can record, even without consent or an announcement. No: then you are in interception or covert-monitoring territory, and that is where the law bites.
    • Is the recording processed for work?Yes: the UK GDPR applies. Your organisation needs a lawful basis, must tell the people involved and must keep the recording proportionate. Purely private use falls outside it.
    • What happens with the recording?Your own record or evidence is one thing. Publishing or sharing it widely is another: that can be misuse of private information, and it needs its own justification.

    The same three questions, four situations.

    The four situations that come up most often, side by side.

    Recording, telling people and using the recording per situation, checked 10 August 2026
    Situation Record? Tell people? Use it?
    I take part in the conversation (private) Yes, even without consent No legal duty For your own records yes; publishing is not automatically allowed
    I do not take part (listening in) Not covered here: interception and covert-monitoring rules apply n/a No
    I covertly record a work meeting I am in Possible, but generally misconduct That is exactly what covert means: no, and that is the problem A tribunal may still admit it as evidence
    An app turns the recording into a report Yes, if you take part Yes, the organisation informs the participants (UK GDPR) Under the data processing agreement and for the stated purpose

    The law, precisely.

    Interception: the Investigatory Powers Act 2016

    Sections 3 and 4 define the offence: intentionally intercepting a communication in the course of its transmission, without lawful authority, so that its content becomes available to someone who is neither the sender nor an intended recipient. Interception is also lawful where both sides consent, or where one side consents and surveillance has been properly authorised. A participant recording their own meeting sits outside all of this: nothing is being captured in transmission for an outsider.

    At work: misconduct and evidence are two different questions

    The Employment Appeal Tribunal put it plainly in Phoenix House v Stockman: it "will generally amount to misconduct" not to tell the other side a meeting is being recorded, save in the most pressing circumstances. It is not automatically gross misconduct: purpose matters, and so does what was recorded. At the same time, the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Vaughan v Lewisham held that covert recordings are not excluded as evidence merely because of how they were obtained; relevance is weighed against privacy. So the same recording can be admissible in your case and a disciplinary problem for you. Record openly and the tension disappears.

    Employers themselves record on their own systems under the 2018 monitoring regulations, for defined purposes such as establishing facts or regulatory compliance. The ICO expects any workplace monitoring to be necessary and proportionate, and expects workers to be told about it in advance.

    Courts and tribunals: never without permission

    Recording court or tribunal proceedings without the court's permission is contempt of court under section 9 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981. Everything on this page is about ordinary work and private conversations, not hearings.

    Online meetings: the notification is not the law.

    Teams and Zoom show everyone a notice when a recording starts, and can even ask participants to agree before their microphone is unmuted. Useful, but that banner is a product feature, not a legal conclusion. The duty to be open about recording sits with you and your organisation under the UK GDPR: a valid purpose, people told what is recorded and why, and a retention period that fits that purpose. One sentence at the start of the meeting does more than any banner.

    Two sectors with extra rules.

    In financial services, FCA-regulated firms must record telephone conversations about in-scope activities and keep them for at least five years; that duty belongs to the firm, not to you as a private individual. In healthcare, the General Medical Council requires doctors to get consent before recording patients for purposes such as teaching or research. If you work in a regulated field, check the rules of your own regulator on top of everything above. What capturing client conversations looks like in day-to-day practice is on the pages for mortgage advisers and insurance advisers, and healthcare has its own page too.

    Around the world: two families of rules.

    Recording law is national, but almost every country lands in one of two camps. In participant or one-party countries, taking part in the conversation is enough. In all-party-consent countries, everyone must agree. Announcing the recording satisfies both models, everywhere.

    The recording rules per country, checked 10 August 2026
    Country The rule for participants
    United States Federal law is one-party consent. Roughly a dozen states, California among them, require everyone's consent; across state lines, follow the strictest rule involved.
    Canada A participant may record. Organisations recording customers must inform them under privacy law.
    Australia Differs per state: Victoria leaves participants free, New South Wales requires a justification.
    Germany All-party consent: recording someone's non-public spoken words without permission is a criminal offence.
    France Consent-based, but recording openly counts: if people can object and don't, consent is presumed.
    Netherlands A participant may record, no consent needed. The Dutch version of this page has the detail.

    And wherever you are in the EU, the GDPR layer comes on top as soon as the recording is processed for work: a lawful basis, and people told what is recorded and why.

    What does the app do with your conversation?

    As soon as an app turns your recording into text, rules apply regardless of whether you were allowed to record. The recording is personal data: your organisation needs a lawful basis, a data processing agreement (GDPR Article 28) with the provider, and the participants must be informed.

    How a tool actually handles this rarely appears in its marketing. So check three things:

    1. Where are the servers? Inside the EU or the UK, or on infrastructure elsewhere? That determines which law your data sits under.
    2. How long is the recording kept? Is the audio deleted straight away, or does it land in a searchable archive that can be requested later?
    3. Is your data used for training? Does the provider use your conversation to train its own models, or does it stay yours?

    If you run conversations through a general chatbot instead of a notetaking tool, first read whether ChatGPT is GDPR-compliant. For the wider trade-offs between tools, read how Notuly handles security.

    How to have the recording written up properly.

    If you want more than a recording (a report you can actually work from), the tool you choose decides whether that happens properly. Notuly is the AI notetaker for every conversation, discreet in-person, hybrid and online: at the table you put your phone in the middle, and for meetings via Teams, Zoom or Google Meet you use the desktop app for macOS and Windows.

    Afterwards the meeting report is in everyone's inbox: the summary, the decisions and the action points with an owner and a deadline ("Sam sends the proposal to Ben on Friday", "Nora schedules the follow-up for Tuesday"). If you choose, the transcript comes along as a .txt attachment. Notuly understands more than 90 spoken languages and delivers the report in English or Dutch.

    For the three checks above, the answer is short. Processing runs on our own servers in Amsterdam; your data never leaves the EU. The audio is deleted within a minute of processing: no archive, no searchable storage. And your conversations are not used as training data and are not for sale.

    The data processing agreement (GDPR Article 28) is available on Team and above: exactly the document the GDPR asks of your organisation. And what do you tell the people in the room? One sentence at the start is enough: "I'm recording this so we all get a report." Most people appreciate it.

    Read how Notuly keeps conversations secure →

    Sources.

    Based on public, authoritative sources, checked 10 August 2026. Law and guidance change; check the source for the current position. The framework above applies across the UK; the main differences in Scotland and Northern Ireland concern defamation law.

    For the world tour: 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d) (United States, federal), Criminal Code section 184 (Canada), Surveillance Devices Act 1999 (Victoria, Australia), § 201 StGB (Germany), Article 226-1 Code pénal (France) and articles 139a and 139b of the Dutch criminal code. All sources checked 10 August 2026.

    General information based on the sources above, not legal advice.

    Frequently asked questions.

    Can you record a meeting without consent in the UK?+

    Generally yes, as long as you take part in the meeting yourself. The offence in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 is interception: capturing a communication in the course of transmission so it becomes available to someone outside it. A participant recording their own conversation falls outside that. What you do with the recording afterwards has its own rules.

    Is it illegal to secretly record a conversation you take part in?+

    In the UK, recording it is not a criminal offence in itself. At work, however, covert recording will generally count as misconduct, and publishing a recording can be unlawful on other grounds. Recording openly avoids both problems.

    Do I have to tell people I'm recording?+

    In the UK, no law requires it for a purely private recording. As soon as an organisation records, or has a report written from the recording, UK GDPR transparency applies: people must be told what is recorded and why. One sentence at the start of the meeting covers it.

    Can I record a phone call?+

    In the UK, generally yes, if you are one of the people on the call. The interception offence targets capturing a call in transmission so it becomes available to someone outside it. Businesses that record customer calls do so on their own systems under the 2018 monitoring regulations, and must make reasonable efforts to tell people.

    Can I record a meeting with my employer?+

    In the UK you can, as a participant, but do it openly. The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that covert recording at work will generally amount to misconduct, save in the most pressing circumstances. If what you want is an accurate record, saying you are recording is almost always the better route.

    Can a covert recording be used as evidence in an employment tribunal?+

    In the UK it can be. Tribunals do not exclude a recording merely because it was made covertly; they weigh its relevance against the way it was obtained. That the recording may be admissible does not make the covert recording itself risk-free for the person who made it.

    Can I share or publish a recording of a meeting?+

    In the UK, keeping a recording for your own records is one thing; publishing it is another. Publishing can amount to misuse of private information, can raise defamation issues and, for organisations, needs its own basis under the UK GDPR. Being allowed to record does not mean you are allowed to publish.

    Can I record a Teams or Zoom meeting?+

    In the UK, yes, as a participant. The platforms show a recording notice to everyone in the meeting, but that notification is a product feature, not the law: the duty to be open about recording sits with you or your organisation under the UK GDPR. Say at the start why you are recording and what happens with it.

    Can I record a court or tribunal hearing?+

    No. Recording court or tribunal proceedings without the court's permission is contempt of court under section 9 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981. This page is about ordinary work and private meetings, not hearings.

    Does the GDPR apply when an app turns my recording into a report?+

    Yes. A recording of identifiable voices is personal data, so your organisation needs a lawful basis, needs to inform participants, and needs a data processing agreement (GDPR Article 28) with the provider that processes the audio. Not every app offers such an agreement.

    Is it legal to record a conversation in the United States?+

    Under US federal law, generally yes, when you take part yourself: that is one-party consent. Roughly a dozen states, California among them, require everyone's consent, and a call across state lines is safest under the strictest rule involved. Announcing the recording satisfies every model.

    What does an app that records a meeting and writes the report cost?+

    With Notuly you start free: three conversations per month, no payment details needed. Paid plans are per licence; the current prices are on the pricing page. You pay per licence, not for a platform up front.

    Read next.

    SecurityWhat an app does with your conversation, and how Notuly handles it.Automatic meeting notesHow AI turns a recording into the meeting report.Is ChatGPT GDPR-compliant?What the GDPR says about running conversations through an AI tool.Meeting minutes exampleWhat a good written record of a meeting looks like.Privacy policyData processing agreement, servers and retention.AGM minutesMinuting the annual general meeting, and recording it properly.

    You're allowed to record. Have it written up properly.

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