Taking meeting minutes with AI sounds tempting: you discuss, the software listens, and shortly after the last word the minutes are in your inbox. Complete with decisions, action items and the people responsible.
But before the machine starts taking notes, one question has to be settled that no software can answer for you: are you allowed to record the conversation at all? The Swiss Criminal Code (SCC) is clearer on this than many people think. And because minutes capture who said what, the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) applies at the same time.
We show how AI minutes are created, what criminal law and data protection law require, and how to introduce the technology with clear ground rules.
Key facts at a glance
- AI minutes are created in three steps: recording, transcript and a summary with decisions and action items.
- Anyone who takes part in a private conversation and records it without the consent of the other participants may commit an offence under Art. 179ter SCC.
- According to the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), consent must come before the recording; it must be as clear as possible about the recording and its purpose.
- The FADP also applies: as a rule, inform data subjects, define the purpose and delete data as soon as it is no longer needed.
- With transcription services, what matters most is the place of processing, training with your content and the retention period.
From conversation to AI minutes: how the machine takes notes
Record, transcribe, condense
First, the conversation is recorded: via the microphone in the meeting room, the video conference or a digital participant in the meeting. Speech recognition, as you know it from AI voice assistants, turns it into a transcript. A language model then condenses the text into a summary, decisions and action items.
What good minutes contain
Good AI minutes are not a verbatim record. They answer three questions: What was decided? Who does what by when? What remains open? In short: less wording, more outcome.
A human has the final say
Speech recognition can mishear, especially with names, figures, technical terms and dialect. And a language model does not always recognise irony: in the worst case, a sarcastic “Great idea” turns into a decision. The minutes are therefore a draft that the person chairing the meeting checks and approves.
Is recording allowed? What criminal law requires
According to the FDPIC, two laws apply side by side to recordings of conversations: the Swiss Criminal Code and the FADP.
No consent, no recording
Under Art. 179ter SCC, anyone who, as a participant in a private conversation, records it on a recording device without the consent of the other participants is liable on complaint to a custodial sentence not exceeding one year or to a monetary penalty.
For listening in on or recording other people’s conversations, Art. 179bis provides for a custodial sentence not exceeding three years or a monetary penalty.
Important for AI minutes: the provision also covers anyone who stores or makes use of such a recording, or makes it available to a third party, when they know or must reasonably believe that it was made as the result of an offence. A secret recording does not become any better just because an AI summarises it.
Ask beforehand, not afterwards
According to the FDPIC, valid consent is key to avoiding prosecution. It must be as clear as possible about the recording and its purpose. And it must come before the recording so that the people concerned can object.
As early as 2020, the FDPIC stated in a fact sheet on video conferencing: participants must be able to object to a recording without negative consequences and, if necessary, leave the meeting.
The exceptions are narrow
Only two types of telephone recording are expressly exempt from penalty: calls with emergency, rescue and security services, and business calls about orders, assignments, reservations and similar transactions (Art. 179quinquies SCC). According to the FDPIC, complaints or complex contract negotiations are not covered.
Even these recordings may only be used as evidence (Art. 179quinquies para. 2); according to the FDPIC, any analysis beyond that is not permitted. For an ordinary team meeting, this means: ask first, then record.
Data protection for AI minutes: what the FADP requires
Minutes record who said what. This means you are processing personal data, and the FADP applies, even if a service only transcribes live and does not store any audio. Our article on AI and data protection provides an overview.
Inform participants and define the purpose
As the controller, you must, as a rule, inform participants at least of your identity and contact details, the purpose, the recipients where applicable and, if data is disclosed abroad, the State concerned (Art. 19).
The purpose is binding: anything collected for the meeting minutes may only be processed further in a way that is compatible with this purpose (Art. 6 para. 3).
For employees, employment law also comes into play: monitoring and control systems intended to monitor behaviour in the workplace must not be used (Art. 26 of Ordinance 3 to the Employment Act). So use AI minutes for documentation, not for monitoring behaviour, for example via the speaking time of individual people.
Keep data only as long as necessary
Personal data must be destroyed or anonymised as soon as it is no longer required for the purpose (Art. 6 para. 4). So decide for yourself when the audio recording, transcript and minutes will be deleted, and protect them appropriately, for example with clear access rights (Art. 8).
Give sensitive meetings special protection
HR discussions or health topics are delicate: health data counts as sensitive personal data (Art. 5 let. c). Where there may be a high risk, the FADP generally requires a data protection impact assessment beforehand (Art. 22). Our recommendation: exclude such meetings from automatic recording.
Introducing AI minutes in your team: tool and ground rules
Check the transcription service
What matters is the path the data takes. With international providers, the place of processing, the applicable law and the use of the content entered depend on the respective contractual terms. So clarify three points:
- Place of processing: where are audio, transcript and minutes processed and stored, including in backups?
- Training: does the provider use your content to train or improve models?
- Retention period: how long does the service keep recordings, and can you delete them yourself?
Our article on the CLOUD Act explains why server location alone does not answer every question.
Set and communicate ground rules
A few clear rules are helpful:
- Obtain and document consent before recording or transcribing.
- Announce at the start that AI minutes are being produced, and respect any objections.
- Define the purpose, retention period and access rights.
- Have all minutes checked and approved before they are sent out.
If, on the other hand, someone reaches for a free app on their own initiative, the result is exactly the kind of shadow AI that clear rules are meant to prevent.
Good AI minutes start before the recording
Taking meeting minutes with AI can save follow-up work. But this only works if the foundation is right: consent before recording, clear rules on purpose and deletion, and a tool you can trust with confidential conversations.
At BE BRAVE, we offer EagleNOTER for meeting documentation. EagleNOTER documents meetings, conversations and interviews automatically. It transcribes Swiss German and standard language, creates structured summaries, actions and decisions, and can be used independently or together with EagleCHAT and EagleHUB.
All AI processing takes place on our own servers in Switzerland. Your content is not used for training, fine-tuning or improving AI models – neither by BE BRAVE AG nor by the model providers we use.
That said, no software can relieve you of obtaining participants’ consent or setting the rules in your company.
This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice.
FAQ
Can you take meeting minutes with AI without consent?
Recording a private conversation without the consent of the other participants may be a criminal offence under Art. 179ter SCC. Only certain telephone recordings are expressly exempt from penalty, for example for orders or calls with rescue services.
Is a note in the meeting invitation enough?
It is a good start. According to the FDPIC, consent must be obtained before the recording and must be as clear as possible about the recording and its purpose. So repeat the notice at the start of the meeting and document the participants’ consent.
How long can you keep AI minutes?
The FADP does not set a fixed deadline. Personal data must be destroyed or anonymised as soon as it is no longer needed for the purpose. For the audio recording, this may already be the case once the minutes have been approved.
Do AI minutes have to be checked by a human?
We strongly recommend it. Speech recognition and language models make mistakes, and the FADP requires you to satisfy yourself that personal data is accurate (Art. 6 para. 5).
