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Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

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Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#41
post #33
post #23

The big names provide recording and transcription now - Zoom has it, Teams has it (Teams apparently does it realtime and live and it's not bad, great for the deaf!). I suppose those are part of paid plans, and they trigger the "your shit is being recorded, dude." warnings.

Don't the need the permission of all participants to transcribe?

No you do not - at least not technically! I had to look into this at work. I looked at WebEx, Teams, and Zoom - all three let auto-transcribe just roll. I think on one of them it gives a quick popup saying it's transcribing but no consent required. Contrast with audio/video recording where Zoom lets you either consent or leave the meeting. I asked our legal counsel and they said it's kind of iffy whether live auto-transcription counts as recording - didn't seem like a settled matter.

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#42

I stopped using them when I saw they share with everyone by default. I wanted the notes only for myself so I could be more present in meetings but not at the expense of making everyone feel like they have to watch what they're saying because it's being transcribed.

That approach sounds like a potential problem for more-than-one party consent jurisdictions.

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#43
I have been a user of Grain for a while, and I appreciate that it auto-joins all of my meetings. However, in a couple of situations it has been with non-tech people who were absolutely confused "what this is" and I didn't see an easy way to disable ahead of time for specific meetings or specific participants.

These tools need a lot more UX work considering the sensitivity of the outcomes.

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#44
Is there such a thing as a simple audio transcribing system that can turn a recording into a text file? I have this problem where I sometimes forget a sentence someone JUST told me. And often my notes aren't sufficient compared to a verbatim recording because I'm liable to forget important contextual info very rapidly. But dealing with raw audio files is a PITA.

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#45
"I am not much of a privacy person but I feel completely abused in this situation"

On the plus side you have been given a valuable lesson.

For example: you may be more of a privacy person that you thought, you may want to be more careful about sharing your data. You may want to consider if you are paying for a service or not makes any difference in the way your data is handled.

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#47
I don't know whether this is bumping into a complicated legal area of audio recording consent, but your company might want to ask a lawyer (about any wrongs to the company, any obligations the company has, etc.).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_call_recording_laws#...

If you're not the head of the company, you could raise it with a higher level of management, or ask in-house counsel.

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#48
post #44

Is there such a thing as a simple audio transcribing system that can turn a recording into a text file? I have this problem where I sometimes forget a sentence someone JUST told me. And often my notes aren't sufficient compared to a verbatim recording because I'm liable to forget important contextual info very rapidly. But dealing with raw audio files is a PITA.

Turn on closed captioning?

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#49

Employee installs something on company computer and gives access to company content. Program does something nefarious but employee innocent.

Um, yes? That's how it works with literally every piece of software that have any permissions locally. What if Google Chrome decided to do the same thing unilaterally?

Re: Tell HN: Otter.ai bot recording meetings without consent

#50
post #23

The big names provide recording and transcription now - Zoom has it, Teams has it (Teams apparently does it realtime and live and it's not bad, great for the deaf!). I suppose those are part of paid plans, and they trigger the "your shit is being recorded, dude." warnings.

Zoom does realtime too
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