Recording meetings in Australia.

Recording private conversations is governed at state and territory level rather than federally, through separate Surveillance Devices or Listening Devices Acts. They differ on the central question of whether a party to a conversation may record it, so the applicable rule depends on which state or territory is involved. Sitting above that is the federal Privacy Act 1988, administered by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, which applies to most organisations above a turnover threshold and to health service providers regardless of size.

The practical consequence is that a call between Sydney and Melbourne can engage two different rules on the same recording. As with a multi-state call in the United States, the workable approach is to apply the strictest rule among the participants rather than to litigate which one governs. A further note: the Privacy Act has been under sustained reform review, with substantial changes proposed and legislated in stages, so verify the current position rather than relying on a summary written a couple of years ago.

The data protection instrument

Privacy Act 1988 (Privacy Act 1988), Cth, No. 119 of 1988

Who supervises this

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (Office of the Australian Information Commissioner)

Criminal provisions

These sit alongside data protection law rather than replacing it. They generally address conduct that is covert or that involves conversations the recorder was not part of, which is a narrower category than everyday meeting recording, and a considerably more serious one.

What to do in practice

The practice below is not the legal minimum in every jurisdiction. It is the practice that is defensible in all of them, which is a more useful target when your calls cross borders.

• Say it out loud at the start, before anything substantive is discussed, and say what the recording is for. Not a line in the invite nobody read.
• Give people a real way to decline. An announcement that leaves no room to object is closer to a notification than to consent.
• Write it down. A line in the notes recording that the meeting was recorded, and that nobody objected, is worth more later than anyone's memory of the moment.
• Keep external meetings to a higher standard than internal ones. Colleagues share an employment context; a customer, a candidate, or a supplier does not.
• Decide how long you keep recordings, and actually delete them. Indefinite retention converts a small, well-handled recording into a growing liability.
• Treat sharing as a fresh decision. The question is not whether you were allowed to record, it is whether this particular person was meant to hear it.

Questions