Recording a work meeting is legal in France if participants are told beforehand. Without that, it is a criminal offence.
Article 226-1 of the French Criminal Code punishes capturing words spoken in a private setting 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, you may not record secretly.
The rest of this page covers the four questions that follow: what "told beforehand" means in practice, what the GDPR adds the moment you keep the file, what you may do with the transcript, and how long you are 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 leaves you a dated trace.
- 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 expensive detail in litigation: 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 minutes remain the 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 remains a criminal offence. But since a landmark ruling of the French Supreme Court sitting in plenary assembly on 22 December 2023, unfairly obtained evidence is no longer automatically excluded from civil proceedings: a judge admits it where it is indispensable to the right to evidence and the interference stays proportionate. In other words, such a recording can be admissible before an employment tribunal and expose you to criminal prosecution. Both at once.
What the GDPR adds once you keep the recording
A voice identifies a person, so a recording is personal data, and so is its transcript. From the moment you keep either, you are a controller, with four concrete obligations.
| Obligation | What it means for a meeting |
|---|---|
| Lawful basis | In a company, legitimate interest covers internal minutes. Consent becomes necessary again if the recording is used to assess people. |
| Transparency | Participants must know who keeps the recording, why, where, and for how long. |
| Minimisation | If the minutes are enough, the raw audio must go. Keeping both "just in case" is not a lawful basis. |
| Retention | The period must be set in advance and enforced automatically. The CNIL does not impose one figure; it requires yours to 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. This is the point most recorder comparisons quietly skip, and the one we work through in our Notus vs Plaud Note comparison: the question is not only who transcribes, but where the file goes.
Video calls: same rule, one extra trap
Teams, Zoom and Meet display a recording banner, so the notice requirement is technically met. The trap is elsewhere: automatic transcription is sometimes enabled by default at the organisation level, and nobody knows it is running or where the files are stored. Before asking whether you may record a meeting, check whether your tool is already recording it.
How long should you keep a meeting recording?
There is no single statutory period. The ones that hold up in practice:
- Raw audio: a few days. Long enough to produce the minutes, then delete. This is the easiest period to justify to a regulator.
- Transcript: the life of the project. It has documentary value the audio no longer has.
- Approved minutes: your normal internal document retention.
On our side this reasoning is wired into the product rather than left to user discipline: the free tier keeps 30 days, then deletes. A default that enforces itself beats a policy nobody executes.
Key points
- Recording is legal; recording without saying so is a criminal offence (Art. 226-1).
- Notice must come first, and one participant's refusal blocks the recording.
- Keeping the recording triggers the GDPR: lawful basis, transparency, minimisation, retention.
- An unfairly obtained recording can be admissible in civil court while still being a crime.
- Check where the file goes: hosting location is part of your compliance.
Sources: Article 226-1 of the French Criminal Code; Cour de cassation, plenary assembly, 22 December 2023, no. 21-11.330; Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), Articles 5, 6, 13 and 28; CNIL guidance on recording in the workplace.
Notus records in plain sight: a visible object on the table, transcription processed in France, automatic deletion after 30 days.
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