A bot joins the call, starts transcribing, and emails everyone a summary afterwards. It is genuinely useful — and in NSW, recording a private conversation without consent or another statutory exception is a criminal offence carrying up to five years. Here is where the line sits.
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Two years ago, recording a work meeting meant someone deliberately pressing a button. Now it is the default. AI meeting assistants join calls automatically, transcribe everything said, identify speakers, and distribute a summary to people who were never in the room.
Most organisations rolled these tools out as a productivity decision. Very few treated it as a surveillance decision. In NSW, that is what it is — and the governing law was written in 2007, long before anything like this existed.
The relevant provision is section 7 of the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 (NSW). It says a person must not knowingly install, use or cause to be used or maintain a listening device:
That second limb is the one people find surprising. Being in the meeting does not entitle you to record it.
The maximum penalty is 500 penalty units for a corporation, or 100 penalty units or 5 years imprisonment, or both, in any other case.
Section 11 separately prohibits publishing or communicating a private conversation, or a report of one, obtained through a device used in contravention of the Act — and the Act expressly treats a report of the substance or meaning of a conversation as caught, which an AI summary plainly is. That only bites if the recording was unlawful to begin with, and even then section 11 does not apply to communication to a party to the conversation, or with the consent of all the principal parties. The practical point stands: get consent right at the recording stage and the distribution question largely takes care of itself.
Section 7(3) sets out when the prohibition on recording your own conversation does not apply. The first and cleanest is that all of the principal parties to the conversation consent, expressly or impliedly, to the device being used.
Note two things. It is all principal parties — a principal party being a person by or to whom words are spoken in the conversation, which is not necessarily everyone who dialled in — not a majority, and not the meeting organiser. And consent can be implied, but implied consent is inferred from conduct, and inferring it from silence after a bot has already joined is a thin argument.
The prohibition also does not apply where a principal party consents and the recording either:
The second of those is worth pausing on if you run AI notetakers, because the entire point of the tool is to generate a summary and send it to people who were not in the meeting. That is the opposite of the exception.
The Act was drafted with concealed microphones in mind, not cloud transcription services. But the definition is about function, not form — any device capable of being used to overhear, record, monitor or listen to a conversation — and a laptop running a meeting assistant is doing precisely that. The safer working assumption is that the regime applies, and to design your process so consent is obtained properly rather than argue afterwards that a bot is not a device.
The prohibition attaches to a private conversation, and the statutory test has two parts: whether the circumstances indicate that any of the speakers wanted the words heard only by those present, and — decisively — whether the parties ought reasonably to have expected that the conversation might be overheard by someone else. A conversation in that second category is not a private conversation at all.
A town-hall address to 400 staff sits very differently from a one-on-one performance discussion behind a closed door. Most of the conversations that later end up in dispute — performance reviews, disciplinary meetings, restructure conversations — are squarely at the private end.
Everything above concerns software — an assistant that joins a video call. The faster-moving problem is hardware. Wearable AI recorders are now sold openly by a number of vendors: small screenless devices worn on the body or clipped to a phone, designed to run continuously rather than be switched on for a single meeting. They are marketed to professionals as a way to capture their own meetings and turn them into notes, and they are small enough to read as a piece of jewellery or a phone accessory.
For the legal analysis these are easier, not harder. Whatever the argument about whether a cloud service is a device, a recorder worn on a lapel plainly is one — the Act defines a listening device as any device capable of being used to overhear, record, monitor or listen to a conversation.
Section 7 has two limbs, and the exception in section 7(3) switches off only the second — recording a conversation you are a party to. There is no equivalent exception attached to the first limb.
That does not make consent irrelevant. The Act defines a party to a private conversation to include a person who records the words with the express or implied consent of any of the speakers. Record with a speaker's consent and the first limb does not engage in the first place.
What is left exposed is genuine bystander capture — a device running continuously in a shared space, picking up conversations nobody in them has agreed to. Two questions then matter: whether those conversations were private conversations at all, which in an open-plan office is a real question; and the Act's carve-out for the unintentional hearing of a private conversation, which on its face is directed at hearing rather than at recording.
Three situations come up, and the answer differs in each:
The practical step is small: say something about personal recording devices in your workplace policy, and decide now what your managers do if someone declines to switch one off.
Employers often assume the Workplace Surveillance Act 2005 (NSW) is the answer here. It is a separate regime: it regulates camera, computer and tracking surveillance of employees at work, including a requirement to give written notice before surveillance begins. It does not deal with audio: the Act's definition of "surveillance of an employee" is a closed list — camera, computer and tracking — and a listening device is not on it. A note under that definition says as much, though notes do not form part of the Act.
In practice an AI meeting assistant may engage both regimes: it records audio, and it typically runs on and stores data through the employer's computer systems. Getting one right does not discharge the other.
The commercial risk is not only the penalty provisions. It is that a poorly handled rollout hands every future dismissal an argument about how the evidence was gathered, and creates a discoverable archive you will have to search when a claim arrives.
This is the question we are asked most often, usually by someone who senses their job is in trouble and wants proof of what is being said to them. The honest answer is: possibly, but do not assume it.
The exception people rely on is that the recording is reasonably necessary for the protection of their lawful interests. It is a real exception and it does real work. But it has three features worth understanding before you decide to record:
If you are in that situation, the better move is almost always to take contemporaneous written notes, confirm important conversations by email afterwards in your own words, and get advice about the underlying problem — rather than to build a secret archive that may not help you and may hurt you.
AI transcripts are not neutral records. They misattribute speakers, mishear names and technical terms, and compress meaning when they summarise. In a dispute that turns on exactly what was said in a performance meeting, that is not a small problem.
If a transcript is being used against you, ask for the underlying audio and the full transcript rather than the summary. If you are an employer relying on one, check it against the recording before you act on it.
Michael Campbell Law advises employers and employees across Baulkham Hills, Norwest, Castle Hill and the wider Hills District on employment law — including workplace policies, surveillance and recording practices, disciplinary processes, and disputes about what was said and when.
For small businesses, the practical need is usually a short, clear policy and a consistent process, not a large compliance project. The first step is a free 15-minute phone call to work out whether we can assist. If we go further, you receive a written costs agreement before any work begins, and fixed fees are offered where applicable.
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This article is general information only and is current as at 18 August 2026. It is not legal advice and does not take account of your circumstances. Surveillance and recording law is fact-sensitive, and whether a particular conversation is private, or a particular recording lawful, depends on the detail. Please obtain advice about your own situation before acting.
It depends on consent. Under section 7 of the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 (NSW) a person must not knowingly use a listening device to record a private conversation, including one they are a party to. An exception applies where all of the principal parties to the conversation consent, expressly or impliedly. In practice that means announcing the recording and giving people a genuine opportunity to object before it starts. A bot that silently joins and begins transcribing does not obviously satisfy that.
Usually not, and you should not assume you can. Knowingly recording a private conversation you are a party to is prohibited unless an exception applies. The exceptions are that all principal parties consent, or that a principal party consents and the recording is either reasonably necessary to protect that party's lawful interests or is not made for the purpose of communicating or publishing the conversation to people who are not parties to it. Whether a recording is reasonably necessary to protect your lawful interests depends heavily on the facts and is decided after the event. Get advice before you rely on it.
Section 7 of the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 (NSW) carries a maximum penalty of 500 penalty units in the case of a corporation, or 100 penalty units or 5 years imprisonment or both in any other case. Separate offences apply to communicating or publishing a private conversation that has been unlawfully recorded.
Not directly. The Workplace Surveillance Act 2005 (NSW) regulates camera, computer and tracking surveillance of employees at work, including notice requirements. Audio recording of conversations is dealt with separately under the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 (NSW). An AI meeting assistant may engage both regimes depending on how it is deployed, because it typically records audio and also operates on the employer's computer systems.
Decide and document who may enable recording and in what meetings, make sure consent is sought clearly at the start of each meeting rather than buried in a policy, give people a real ability to decline without disadvantage, work out where transcripts are stored and who can access them, set a retention period, and update your surveillance and privacy policies and employment contracts to match. Consultation with staff is sensible and may be required depending on your obligations.
It may be, but its usefulness depends on how it was obtained and how accurate it is. A recording made unlawfully can create problems for the party who made it, and AI transcripts routinely misattribute speakers and mistranscribe words, which can matter a great deal when the dispute turns on precisely what was said. Treat a transcript as a starting point rather than proof, and get advice early.
Wearable AI recorders are subject to the same law as any other listening device. The exception in section 7(3) of the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 (NSW) applies only to recording a conversation the person is a party to, and the Act treats someone who records with the express or implied consent of any speaker as a party. The real gap is bystander capture: conversations picked up in a shared space by a continuously running device, which nobody in them has agreed to. Whether that is an offence also depends on whether those conversations were private conversations at all. Employers should deal with personal recording devices in their workplace policy rather than leaving managers to handle it in the moment.
A free 15-minute phone call is the quickest way to find out whether we can help — whether you are rolling out AI tools across a team, or worried about what is being recorded in your own workplace.
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