Sitting in the background of modern office meetings and job candidate interviews is an increasingly familiar presence: the electronic notetaker.

Artificial intelligence has powered a recording software boom as transcription services and similar tools aim to summarize hours of human-to-human discussion. But the use of these systems by HR teams has raised red flags among practitioners and legal counsel.

An emerging issue is that some platforms may not even alert participants that a recording is in progress or that it will be transcribed or used for future purposes, said Brian McGinnis, partner at Barnes & Thornburg. This is meant to reduce friction and is even marketed as an attractive feature, but it could be a legally dubious one depending on where participants are located.

Various states require all-party consent to recording of conversations, such as California, Florida and Illinois. And given that modern virtual calls can involve participants from any state or country, HR teams will need to take note and manually obtain others’ consent if the notetaker or recording tool doesn’t automatically provide an opt-out.

There’s also the matter of context. McGinnis said he is seeing HR teams most often use automated notetakers in the recruiting space, which is potentially problematic given an emergent trend of state and local laws regulating the use of AI in employment decisions. For this reason, a video call with a potential hire that features AI-based recording and transcription is “considered more high risk than your typical Zoom meeting,” McGinnis added.

Separately, a handful of states have workplace monitoring laws that may come into play, said Adam Solomon, partner at Hunton Andrews Kurth, and these laws often specify how employers must provide advance notice to employees about recording technologies. And there are even more categories of laws that could be applicable, Solomon noted, including social media privacy laws and intrusion on seclusion torts, which not all states recognize.

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