Recording meetings in Germany.
Germany is the jurisdiction most people have heard something about, usually a half-remembered warning. The half they remember is Section 201 of the Criminal Code, and it is worth understanding properly.
The General Data Protection Regulation applies here of its own force rather than through a national translation of it, and the national act below handles the parts member states are left to decide for themselves. The supervisory authority enforces both. Alongside it sits Section 201 of the Strafgesetzbuch, which protects the confidentiality of the spoken word and predates all of this.
For an ordinary business meeting the data protection layer governs day to day: a reason for recording you can state before you start, told to people at the time rather than afterwards, and retention only as long as that reason holds. Section 201 is a different kind of question. It is criminal law rather than administrative, it concerns the non-publicly spoken word, and it treats using or passing on a recording as conduct separate from making it. That combination is why Germany is treated as one of the stricter European jurisdictions here, and why announcing the recording and getting agreement matters more than anywhere else on this list.
- The data protection instrument
- Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (Federal Data Protection Act), BDSG 2018
- Who supervises this
- Bundesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit (Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information)
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.
Strafgesetzbuch, Section 201
Criminal Code
Violation of the confidentiality of the spoken word. The provision addresses recording the non-publicly spoken word of another person on a sound carrier, and separately addresses using or making available such a recording. It is the reason Germany is treated as one of the stricter jurisdictions in Europe for meeting recording.
What is specific to this country
- The GDPR applies directly in Germany rather than through a national equivalent. A meeting recording that identifies the people in it is personal data, so making, storing and sharing it is processing, and it needs a lawful basis under Article 6.
- Transparency is a separate obligation from lawful basis. Article 13 requires that people are told what is being collected and why at the time it is collected, which for a meeting means at the start rather than afterwards.
- Data protection supervision is federal and state-level at once. The BfDI supervises federal bodies and telecoms, while each Land has its own authority for most private-sector organisations, so the competent regulator depends on where the organisation sits.
- Section 201 StGB is criminal rather than administrative, which puts it in a different category from a GDPR compliance question. Complying with the Regulation does not answer it.
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
Is it illegal to record a meeting in Germany?
That is the question this page deliberately does not answer, because it depends on facts we do not have: who is present, what was agreed, what the recording is for and who sees it afterwards. What can be said is that Section 201 StGB makes the confidentiality of the spoken word a criminal matter rather than only a compliance one, and that recording with everyone's clear agreement sits a long way from the conduct it targets.
Which authority supervises this?
Both federal and state. The BfDI supervises federal public bodies and telecommunications, while each Land has its own data protection authority covering most private-sector organisations. Which one is competent depends on where the organisation is established.
Does the GDPR or the Criminal Code apply?
Both, to different questions. The Regulation governs whether you may process the personal data in a recording and on what basis. Section 201 governs a narrower and more serious category of conduct. Satisfying one says nothing about the other.
Sources
Primary sources, so you can check this rather than take our word for it.
Recording that announces itself.
Canto's notetaker joins as a named participant the organiser admits, and the recording, the transcript and who can see it stay under your control. 300 minutes a month, free forever.