Recording Virtual Meetings – What you need to know
Are you thinking about recording virtual meetings? During the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual meetings and video conferencing became essential parts of the modern workplace. But you need to think about what the law says about recording these virtual meetings because federal and state laws about wiretapping and recording can be different. This can make it hard for IT teams to come up with rules about how remote workers can record virtual meetings. In this article, we’ll talk about the pros and cons of recording virtual meetings as well as mention the legal issues that companies should be aware of.
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice. It’s just a warning that you might need legal advice if you plan to record a call. Consult your own lawyer.
Benefits of Recording Virtual Meetings
There are several benefits to recording virtual meetings, especially for remote workers. Teams can record their conversations and brainstorming sessions so that team members can go back and better understand what was said. Recordings can also be used to save training sessions for later use, making sure that employees have access to important information even if they weren’t able to pay full attention during the session. Recordings can also save information that will be useful in the future, like project requirements or client-facing conversations where everyone needs to know or be able to refer back to what was said.
Reasons Not to Record a Virtual Meeting
Even though it is usually legal to record virtual meetings, there are some practical, ethical, and legal reasons why an organization might choose not to.
First, ask yourself, “Are you really going to use it for anything?” Face it, most web conferences have a very short useful life. Within a week or two, everything discussed is out of date, and nobody cares anymore.
You may think that you’re recording it for people who couldn’t make it to the meeting. Realistically, though, if they didn’t prioritize the meeting in the first place, how likely are they to sit through a replay? Aren’t they more likely to just ask their coworkers what they missed?
Concerns about ethics could include interactions between managers and employees, performance reviews, or HR issues that employees might not want recorded. Organizations might also choose not to record HR complaints, as some employees might be less likely to come forward with issues if they know the meeting will be recorded.
Legal Issues
In terms of the law, you need to think about wiretapping and recording laws that protect people from being recorded without their permission. US federal law requires one-party consent, but some states, including Florida, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, and California, require all parties to give their consent before a call or video conference can be recorded. The laws in other countries differ, too. Before you record a virtual meeting, make sure you know about these laws and that, if necessary, all of the people involved have given their permission.
If you break the law about wiretapping and recording, you could face both civil and criminal charges. Organizations should also think about the possibility of privacy lawsuits if they don’t follow the rules and laws when recording virtual meetings.
Fortunately, most web conferencing platforms have built-in recording compliance. When you press record, typically, a notification pops up to let you know the meeting is being recorded and gives participants a chance to either accept and continue or reject and leave the meeting.
Recording Limitations
Any web conference recording happens locally on the machine where you press record. That means the video quality is limited to the feed that the machine receives. If an attendee’s internet connection is bad, you’ll get fuzzy video, poor audio, and stuttering framerates. Every problem you encounter in a normal web call will be recorded as it happens.
Finally, video can take up a significant amount of storage space. According to Zoom, a one-hour video takes up about 200 MB per hour.
Options for Higher-Quality Video
While webcams can be convenient for virtual meetings, they can have limitations when it comes to video quality. To get higher-quality video, you might consider using smartphones or mirrorless cameras as webcams. These devices have much better cameras than most webcams and can capture video at higher resolutions and with better low-light performance. Using a smartphone or mirrorless camera as a webcam requires a special adapter or cable and software that allows the device to be used as a webcam.
In conclusion, recording virtual meetings can help with a number of things, such as keeping track of important information and capturing team interactions. But you must also think about practical, ethical, and legal issues, such as laws about wiretapping and recording and possible privacy violations. Using smartphones or mirrorless cameras as webcams can help to improve the video quality of virtual meetings. Organizations should have clear rules about recording virtual meetings and make sure they follow all laws and guidelines.