Information provided by the UC Berkeley Privacy Office
Do I need to obtain meeting attendee permission to capture their video and save sessions?
- Yes. Some US states (including California) are “two party” or “all party” consent states, which generally require the permission of both or all parties involved in a recording. While attendees participating remotely may be coming from a variety of states (or countries), we must assume the “all party” consent rule applies.
What are meeting hosts required to do?
- Meeting hosts should always inform attendees at the start of the meeting or in advance of the meeting if they are going to record a meeting. Zoom automatically notifies attendees present at the start of a meeting if the meeting is being recorded. However, meeting hosts should also verbally notify attendees that a meeting will be recorded. Meeting hosts may also choose to explicitly require consent to be recorded via Zoom. Attendees who do not consent will be denied access to the meeting, so we suggest its use only after you’ve communicated with your attendees, given them a chance to express any concerns, and determined an alternative for individuals who have not consented.
- We recommend that you inform meeting attendees, prior to a recorded meeting, how you intend to record, use, and share video. You may also consider giving attendees options to participate without having their image or voice recorded, such as allowing them to attend with no video or audio, and the option to pose questions only in the text chat window. Because you can start and stop recordings in Zoom at any time, you can choose to include unrecorded time throughout your Zoom session, giving attendees an opportunity to discuss topics or ask questions that they do not wish to have recorded.
Should staff meetings be recorded?
- As a general rule, staff meetings should not be recorded absent an articulated business purpose (including as a reasonable accommodation) that requires recording of the meeting. Generally, you should not record a meeting if the same meeting would not be recorded if it occurred in person.
- If a staff meeting is going to be recorded, hosts should inform attendees that the meeting will be recorded in advance of the meeting and also offer attendees the opportunity to opt out of the meeting or to mute their audio and video if they object to the recording of their image or voice. Please consider whether it is necessary to record the meeting. Bear in mind that the recording becomes a University record that must be stored and retained appropriately and may be subject to disclosure upon request (e.g., in response to a request under the California Public Records Act or California’s Information Practices Act).
- If you believe it is necessary to record a meeting, but one or more participants object to the recording, please consult your People & Culture representative.
When should Zoom Live Transcription be used, and what are meeting hosts required to know about this feature?
- Zoom allows meeting hosts to generate automated speech to text captions of Zoom discussions. See: How to use Zoom Live Transcription to learn more about how to enable this feature.
- When meeting hosts do want to use the live transcription feature, it is important that prior to the start of the meeting, they notify participants that the feature will be used, and indicate if they plan to download a copy of the transcription.
- Meeting hosts should also inform attendees if they will be sharing the transcription with individuals who did not attend the meeting. Additionally, meeting hosts should request that meeting attendees request permission from the other attendees if they plan to download and share transcriptions of a meeting with non-attendees.
- Finally, please keep in mind that meeting transcriptions (just like audio recordings) may be subject to disclosure in response to a Public Records Act request.
