Recording a work meeting is legal in France if participants are told beforehand. Without that, it is, in principle, a criminal offense.
Article 226-1 of the French Criminal Code punishes capturing words spoken in a private or confidential capacity without the speaker's consent with up to one year in prison and a €45,000 fine. The working rule fits in one sentence: you may record, but not secretly.
Four questions follow. What does "told beforehand" mean in practice? What does the GDPR add? What may you do with the transcript? How long are you allowed to keep it?
What "telling participants" actually requires
Case law does not demand a signed form. It demands that nobody can credibly claim they did not know. Three practices cover almost every professional meeting.
- Say it out loud at the start. "I'm recording this to take notes, tell me if that's a problem." It must come before the recording starts, and "no" must be a possible answer.
- Put it in the invitation. One line in the agenda sent the day before counts as prior notice and gives you a dated record.
- Use a visible device. A recorder on the table with its light on informs people better than a phone face-down in a pocket. That is one reason Notus is an object rather than an invisible app.
The point that costs people in court is timing: notice must be prior. Announcing the recording at the end of the meeting fixes nothing.
What if someone refuses?
Then you do not record. One person's refusal makes the recording unlawful for the whole meeting, since their voice is in it. Written notes are then your only option, and minutes approved by the participants carry more weight than a disputed recording anyway.
Employees recording their employer
This is the most common situation and the most misunderstood. Recording without the employer's knowledge is, in principle, still a criminal offense. Yet since a landmark ruling of the French Supreme Court sitting in plenary assembly on December 22, 2023, unfairly obtained evidence is no longer automatically excluded from civil proceedings. A judge may admit it where it is indispensable to the right to evidence and the interference stays proportionate. Such a recording can therefore be admissible before an employment tribunal and expose you to criminal prosecution. The same rules apply to calls, as we explain in Recording a phone call in France: is it legal?
What the GDPR adds once you record
A voice identifies a person, so a recording is personal data, and so is its transcript. The GDPR applies from the moment you record. The controller is usually your company or firm, which has four concrete obligations.
| Obligation | What it means for a meeting |
|---|---|
| Lawful basis | The company's legitimate interest covers internal minutes. If the recording is used to assess employees, their consent cannot serve as the basis, because an employee is not free to say no to an employer. You then need a documented legitimate interest, prior notice to employees (Article L. 1222-4 of the French Labor Code) and consultation of the works council, the CSE (Article L. 2312-38). |
| Transparency | Participants must know who keeps the recording, why, where, and for how long. |
| Minimization | If the minutes are enough, the raw audio must go. Keeping both "just in case" cannot be justified. |
| Retention | The period must be set in advance and enforced automatically. The CNIL does not impose one figure, but yours must be defensible. |
Your processor's compliance is your compliance
If transcription runs through a third-party service, that service is your processor. You need a contract under Article 28 GDPR and, if the servers sit outside the EU, a valid transfer mechanism. Notus will offer this data processing agreement to its business customers. Most recorder comparisons quietly skip this point, and we work through it in our Notus vs Plaud Note comparison. The question is not only who transcribes, but also where the file goes and who can reach it (see The CLOUD Act: why a server in France is not enough).
Video calls: same rule, one extra trap
Teams, Zoom and Meet display a recording banner, which technically meets the notice requirement. The trap is elsewhere. Automatic transcription is sometimes turned on by default for the whole organization, and nobody knows it is running or where the files are stored. Before asking whether you may record a meeting, check that your tool is not already recording it.
How long should you keep a meeting recording?
There is no single statutory period. These are the ones that hold up in practice.
- Raw audio: a few days. Keep it long enough to produce the minutes, then delete it. This is the easiest period to justify to a regulator.
- Transcript: the life of the project. It keeps a documentary value the audio no longer has.
- Approved minutes: your usual retention period for internal documents.
With Notus, the transcript and summary reach your phone about thirty seconds after the recording ends. The audio is then deleted, and our sub-processors delete it within 48 hours at most. Only the transcript and the note are stored, for 30 days on the free plan. A deletion that happens on its own beats a policy nobody follows.
Notus is available for pre-order, shipping in the first half of 2027. See how it works
Key takeaways
- Recording is legal; recording without saying so is, in principle, a criminal offense (Art. 226-1).
- Notice must come first, and one participant's refusal blocks the recording.
- The GDPR applies from the moment you record: lawful basis, transparency, minimization, retention.
- An unfairly obtained recording can be admissible in civil court while still being a crime.
- Check where the file goes, because hosting location is part of your compliance.
Sources: Article 226-1 of the French Criminal Code; Articles L. 1222-4 and L. 2312-38 of the French Labor Code; Cour de cassation, plenary assembly, December 22, 2023, no. 21-11.330; Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), Articles 5, 6, 13 and 28; EDPB Guidelines 05/2020 on consent; CNIL guidance on recording in the workplace.