[matthewdgreen]

I’m still not sure what we’re talking about. When I turn on recording in Zoom, a booming voice announces that “this meeting is being recorded” to all participants. In older conferencing systems you’d get similar recorded warnings and sometimes loud beeps every so often.

[cj]

That’s if you’re using Zoom’s built-in recording.

Services like Notion, Otter, Limitless, etc all provide the ability to record without having anything visible in the meeting. It doesn’t rely on Zoom’s built-in recording feature. Meaning the meeting will appear as if there’s no recording taking place.

They work via an app you install on your computer which hooks in to your computer’s audio in/out.

[matthewdgreen]

I don't understand why this relatively simple conversation is taking so long. Let me summarize:

1. Standard built-in meeting recording tools (like Zoom, Meet and Teams) all give a warning to other participants, and have done so for years. These are the gold standard for what users expect from recording-enabled tools, because they've been (essentially) the primary game in town and I can bet that everyone reading this conversation has encountered the warning at least once before Otter etc. came along.

2. If you want to build your own meeting recording tool that joins the meeting as a "participant" (or as an add-on to a real participant's own machine) then it seems like a good idea to try to mimic the same warning UX for the other participants. At worst you're following "best practices" and at best you're insulating yourself from a lawsuit like this one.

3. I don't know what you're talking about when you mention Otter (the subject of TFA) because I clearly see Otter notetakers join as a participant. Or per the docs: "Otter Notetaker can automatically join your Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams meetings and transcribe your meetings in real-time." I can't see any reason why, as a separate participant, they would be technically unable to display a written warning on the video feed and/or emit an audio warning.

4. From perusing Otter's site, it looks like you can also upload a Zoom recording (which will cause Zoom to emit the standard warning) or you can sync in an Otter app, which requires Zoom Admin and presumably has capabilities like "warn the other users" since the integration is pretty tight.

5. Even if the software is running purely locally, I imagine there are ways to insert a warning into the meeting. Maybe in a few cases there is some technical reason it's absolutely impossible that I don't understand! But frankly, I do not believe that the lack of warning is purely due to technical limitations, since Otter Zoom participants also don't recite one. I'm fairly certain that even tools that purely use local feeds, there is likely a way to emit this warning to other users if you want to badly enough.

6. If this is a purely technical argument about the limitations of the product used in that one specific case, then let's have it.

[cj]

I’m also not sure why you’re not seeing the main issue.

Common meeting recording tools do not require consent, and the UX promotes a UX that discourages consent.

Just today, Notion launched a new feature in their desktop app which causes a pop up on your desktop whenever you’re about to join a Google Meet. All it says it “Would you like to record this meeting? Please ensure you gather consent from attendees”

Of course the consent gathering isn’t enforced, and it records and transcribes silently in the background without joining the meeting.

I understand it’s technically possible to do what you’re saying. I also understand the built-in recording of Google Meet, etc, all make it obvious that the meeting is recorded.

The only point I’m trying to make is it’s extremely common for meeting recording tools to not join meetings and not ask for consent directly. If you ignore/deny this is happening, I fear you’re fooling yourself into thinking you’re not being recorded when in fact you very well might be, unknowingly, by any of your meeting attendees.