Is it legal to use AI on calls? What we could and could not verify

United States: the federal rule

Federal wiretap law (18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d)) says it is not unlawful to record a call where you are a party to it, or where one of the parties has given prior consent. That is why people call the US 'one-party consent'. The exception is recording done to commit a crime or a tortious act.

One-party consent does not mean anything goes. The exception above applies, and states can set stricter rules, which is where it gets harder.

United States: the states that are stricter

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press lists about 11 states as needing the consent of all parties: California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan (at least for recordings by a third party), Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington. Note the words 'commonly described'. Lists differ by source. Wikipedia's summary, for example, adds Connecticut, Hawaii and Oregon and treats Michigan as disputed.

The same RCFP guide describes partial cases. Connecticut and Nevada are described as all-party for phone calls only, Missouri and Oregon for in-person conversations only, and Hawaii and Maine only in private places. It also says consent can sometimes be implied when everyone is warned and carries on, and that for calls across state lines you should assume the stricter state's law may apply.

AI note taker lawsuits: allegations, not findings

Two cases are often cited. Both are allegations or early rulings reported by law firms, not final decisions, and we could not confirm what happened later.

• Brewer v. Otter.ai (US District Court, Northern District of California, No. 5:25-cv-06911), filed in August 2025. The plaintiff alleges claims under federal and California law and says Otter's Notetaker recorded a call without consent from non-host attendees and uses data to train its models. These are allegations.
• Ambriz v. Google (same court). On 10 Feb 2025 the court denied a motion to dismiss a class action under California's privacy law over a Google customer-service AI product. Commentary says a later Ninth Circuit decision may weaken the legal theory used. We could not verify the outcome.

Law firm commentary (Goodwin, Feb 2025) says AI voice products face claims under California's invasion of privacy law. The takeaway is modest: plaintiffs are testing old wiretap laws against AI tools, so disclosure matters.

Canada, the EU and the UK

Canada. Section 184 of the Criminal Code makes it an offence to knowingly intercept a private communication, but not where the originator or an intended recipient consents. So a participant can generally record. Businesses are separately subject to privacy law (PIPEDA) and need meaningful consent for personal information.

EU and UK. Recording or transcribing a call usually involves personal data, so GDPR rules on transparency apply. You need a lawful basis (the UK regulator, the ICO, lists seven) and you must tell people your purposes and legal basis when you collect their data. GDPR Article 13 lists what to say, including who is responsible for the data, the purposes and the recipients.

Article 50 of the EU AI Act sets transparency duties for AI systems that interact with people. Its start dates have been the subject of change proposals, so check the current position. The text does not mention note takers or transcription, so it should not be read as requiring you to announce one.

What Zoom, Meet and Teams tell participants

• Zoom. Participants see a recording disclaimer, and phone participants hear a voice prompt. For AI features, search results say participants are told a summary is active, but we did not open those pages ourselves.
• Google Meet. 'Participants get a notification when the recording starts or stops.' Auto-started notes and transcripts show an on-screen warning, and admins can require consent.
• Microsoft Teams. 'When you start recording a meeting, everyone will be notified automatically.' Microsoft also says that depending on your region you may need everyone's permission before recording.

A platform notice only covers what the platform does. A tool that listens through your computer, as Palmcard and other bot-free assistants do, shows nothing to the other side. Telling people yourself is the only notice they get.

What to say at the start of a call

Guides from Fordham, Calendly and Cooley, among others, agree on the basics: say it in the invite and again at the start, ask if it is fine, accept a no, and pause for sensitive topics. Do not rely only on a tool's own notice.

Palmcard's own position is the same. The product tells you to say at the start that the call is transcribed, the way you would for any recording, and reminds you at the start of every call. The card is excluded from screen sharing and recordings on Mac and Windows, so it does not show up in a shared screen. That is separate from telling people the call is transcribed, which you should still do. See how Palmcard handles your data and the privacy policy.

What we could not verify

These are the gaps. Please check them with a lawyer or the regulator before relying on anything about them.

• Malta. Malta applies the GDPR through the Data Protection Act, and the Information and Data Protection Commissioner (IDPC) is the regulator. We found no call-recording guidance on the IDPC site and could not confirm the text of the local rules.
• India. We found conflicting secondary sources on recording calls, and could not confirm the effect of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act.
• Australia. Rules are set mainly by state and territory and differ. We did not read the legislation itself.
• UK specifics. We could not retrieve current ICO call-recording guidance or confirm the status of older UK telecoms rules.
• EU ePrivacy. We could not retrieve the text of the ePrivacy rules on confidentiality of communications.
• US details. Whether each all-party state treats breaches as criminal, civil or both, and the exact penalties in California, were not verified.
• Canada. Provincial laws and the exact implied-consent position of the federal privacy regulator were not verified.
• Cases. What happened in Brewer v. Otter.ai and Ambriz v. Google after the dates above.
• Zoom AI and Teams Copilot notices. We saw their wording only in search listings.