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Getting Consent

When you record meetings with Harmony, you are responsible for informing participants and obtaining the consent required by your local recording laws. This page summarises that responsibility and describes how Harmony surfaces a recording session to participants.

Your responsibility as the Controller​

When using Harmony, your organisation is the Data Controller. That means you are responsible for:

  • Complying with local recording laws (such as one-party vs. all-party consent jurisdictions).
  • Informing participants that they are being recorded.
  • Obtaining the consent your jurisdiction requires before the meeting starts.
  • Honouring objections from participants who do not consent.

Legal note: This page provides general orientation. Always consult your legal counsel for advice specific to your jurisdiction and use case.

How Harmony surfaces the recording​

When Harmony records a remote meeting through the Companion Bot, the bot joins the call as a visible participant. The default display name is Harmony Bot, and the participant name is configurable per workspace.

The bot is dispatched through Harmony's meeting-bot provider integration (Recall.ai or MeetingBaas, depending on workspace configuration), and it appears in the meeting platform's participant list (Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams) the same way any other participant does.

Harmony does not currently ship in-meeting verbal announcements or automatic chat-message notifications from the bot. If your workflow requires either of those, you can:

  • Make a verbal announcement at the start of the call.
  • Post a manual message in the meeting chat.
  • Include a recording notice in the calendar invite.

1. Verbal announcement (recommended)

The most common method is to state your intent clearly at the start of the call.

"I'd like to record this meeting with Harmony to capture notes and action items. Is everyone okay with that?"

2. Calendar invitation

Include a notice in the meeting invite so participants know ahead of time.

"Note: This meeting will be recorded using Harmony for transcription purposes."

3. Written policy

For internal teams, include a recording policy in your employee handbook or employment contracts.

Handling objections​

If a participant declines to be recorded:

  1. Acknowledge their concern immediately.
  2. Stop the recording — remove the Companion Bot from the call, or stop the desktop recording from the desktop app.
  3. Document that the recording was stopped on request, and delete the resulting conversation if any was created.

You can delete a conversation from the conversation detail view via the action menu (⋯) next to the title.

Industry-specific considerations​

Different industries have different rules. The notes below are general orientation only — not a guarantee of suitability.

Healthcare

Recording calls that involve Protected Health Information (PHI) raises additional requirements (for example, HIPAA in the United States). Harmony does not, by default, claim HIPAA compliance or offer a Business Associate Agreement (BAA). If your use case requires either, contact your Harmony account team to discuss what is and is not contractually available before recording PHI.

Legal and financial services

Conversations involving privileged or regulated content may be subject to retention, disclosure, or supervisory requirements that go beyond general consent. Confirm with your legal or compliance team that your retention, sharing, and access settings in Harmony match those obligations.

Public sector and education

Sectoral rules may add notice or recordkeeping requirements on top of general recording consent. As with healthcare, do not assume any specific certification or framework alignment without contractual confirmation.