Automatically Requesting Recording Consent

Rather than taking a few minutes out of your meeting time to ask for permission to record the call, Fathom sends an email notification to your attendees before your scheduled event.

It's generally best practice to obtain consent before you record a call. In some jurisdictions, recording without permission can even be illegal.

We recommend consulting with a lawyer to understand related laws in the jurisdictions in which you operate.

To make it easier for you to request consent—and allow your attendees to comfortably opt-out—Fathom offers consent emails.

If your attendee has requested in advance not to be recorded, we disable auto-record and mark this call with the yellow ⚠️ warning icon . On these calls, we recommend you do not let in your notetaker unless you obtain verbal consent from the other party.

When this feature is enabled, Fathom will email your meeting attendees from outside your organization 24 hours before the start of your meeting to collect call recording consent.

If you schedule a meeting less than 24 hours in the future on the next calendar day, the email will go out immediately. Fathom does not send same-day consent requests.

• The meeting is external (not internal)

• The Fathom user is the host of the meeting

• The call start time is midnight or later in the host’s time zone

• Consent is enabled on the Settings page

• The number of guest attendees is exactly 1

If the client selects "No, I'd prefer not to be recorded," auto-record will be turned off for that call.

The desktop app drawer will also have a warning icon:

If the client selects "YES, I consent to being recorded" then the drawer will have a green toggle:

1. Go to the Settings page

2. Scroll down to the Options section

3. Toggle on "Auto Request Recording Consent"

We suggest defaulting to over-sharing that the call is being recorded to ensure that everyone involved has provided consent.

There are multiple ways to achieve this:

• Stating at the beginning of a call that it's being recorded, to ensure that there are no objections.

• Enabling consent requests, outlined above.

• If utilizing Zoom:

  • Zoom will display a banner stating that the meeting is being recorded.

  • Zoom will also audibly state "recording in progress" unless this setting is deactivated (which we do not recommend):

    

• Attendees will see that there is a Fathom AI Notetaker on the call. You can update the name of your notetaker to make it clear that the bot is recording the conversation.