NEW YORK (AP) — It can be tempting to fire up an artificial intelligence tool to take notes from a virtual meeting and summarize important information. Seconds after one of your agents joins an hour-long video conference, you can summarize the key points and outline your to-do list for everyone in attendance.
However, some people avoid using AI note takers due to the way popular AI note takers perform these tasks. of technology All comments made during the meeting will be converted into data. Confidential personnel information, corporate strategies, trade secrets, and potentially incriminating statements can all fall into the wrong hands.
“AI note takers pose significant risks to organizations,” said Amy Dufresne, CEO of HRCI, a human resources training and certification provider. “I don’t think companies should use it at all.”
AI Notetaker is a software application or device that uses: artificial intelligencespeech recognition and large-scale language models for recording, transcribing, and summarizing conversations. The purpose of the tool is save time But experts in many fields say there are reasons to be cautious.
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The biggest factor is uncertainty about where the collected data will be stored and for how long. Privacy advocates are concerned the company behind AI note takers are creating voiceprints without consent. Voiceprints (a type of biometric profile similar to fingerprints but tailored to the unique intonations and characteristics of a person’s voice) can be used to access restricted or sensitive information, such as the contents of a bank account.
Some technology companies resell data from note-taking tools they created or used. confidential meeting records Recordings for training AI models. There is also a risk that conversations between attorney and client could become fair game in legal proceedings. In February, a federal judge in New York ordered a criminal defendant to turn over documents he prepared for his lawyers to prosecutors, saying they had already been shared with a third party, Anthropic. Claude.
“People using AI note takers don’t always know where their data is going,” said Justin Daniels, general counsel at Atlanta-based law firm Baker Donelson. “And in my context, a privileged attorney-client conversation may no longer be attorney-client privileged if the data is sent elsewhere and they are unaware of it.”
Here are some tips on the etiquette for kicking an AI note taker out of a meeting, the risks of using an AI note taker, and how to protect yourself.
The first step when joining a meeting is to check the bot
When you attend a meeting, make it a habit to check if an AI note taker is present. This may appear as a meeting attendee labeled as an AI note taker, or as an on-screen pop-up message informing participants that the meeting is being recorded. The latter could indicate the presence of an AI note taker.
Torin Klosowski, senior security and privacy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said virtual meeting platforms like Zoom and Google Meet can let users know when a recording is in progress, but some meeting software doesn’t make it clear when note-takers are present.
Participants can also use personal note-taking devices separate from the meeting platform. In that case, other participants do not necessarily need to know that the discussion is being recorded and transcribed.
“You would hope that the other person would say that’s what they’re doing,” Klosowski said. “The most polite approach is to ask for everyone’s consent before holding a sensitive meeting.”
If you’re not sure if someone has introduced an AI note-taker, you can ask. You can also indicate at the outset that recording the meeting is not allowed.
A polite way to establish such boundaries is to say, “Our policy is that this meeting cannot be recorded,” Dufresne suggests. This means that salespeople and other employees who want to make a good impression will no longer have to be the “bad guys” and will instead be held accountable to the company.
Another option is to allow note-taking during part of the meeting, but turn it off at the end to free up time for more sensitive topics.
“We’re not going to start talking about anything substantive until it’s shut down because we don’t want to take any risks,” Daniels said.
Assert your privacy rights to protect your voiceprint
Chris Pluimers, associate attorney at Dillon Law Group in East Lansing, Michigan, says many AI recorders identify the unique acoustic signatures, or voiceprints, of each speaker in the room. In this way, companies distinguish one speaker from another, naming them “Speaker 1” or “Speaker 2.”
One use of voiceprints is to verify the identity of bank account holders over the phone. He said that once malicious actors have a person’s audio signature, they can use it to access files, commit fraud, or take over accounts.
Laws in some states govern how voiceprints are created and stored, and provide rights for individuals to object to the use of AI note takers during meetings they attend.
In Illinois, voiceprints are considered biometric identifiers, similar to fingerprints, and are protected by the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act, which requires written notice and informed consent before AI record creators and other agents collect voiceprints. Pluymers said the law also requires documentation of data retention schedules and destruction policies. But most companies using the tool don’t have such systems in place, Pluymers said.
“In the world of AI, the world of data and privacy, the world of biometrics, I don’t think you can take such a lax approach,” Pluymers said. “I think it’s important to get out of it beforehand.”
Under Illinois law, employees can say they don’t want to attend a meeting with an AI note-taker until they can be sure where, why, and when their data will be deleted, Pluymers said. You can also ask if they have a policy and written agreement to sign.
If an AI note taker shows up unexpectedly in a meeting, Pluymers suggested participants can say, “I’d like to continue this meeting without the use of AI recording or transcription tools. I’d be happy to take my own notes and share a summary if it would be helpful.” “I simply ask, warmly and sincerely, that your wishes be respected.”
Know where your data is going
Daniel Kayes, a partner at Fisher Phillips who represents companies on privacy and employment law issues, said anyone using an AI note-taking app should check whether the company behind the app retains the recordings, transcripts and metadata indefinitely or is using them to train AI models.
“If you have some kind of speaker ID or voice recognition, make sure you understand what it is and how it works,” Kayes says.
Even if the content is removed, metadata about the meeting may remain stored with the vendor, so business-sensitive information could affect the behavior of the model and, in some cases, be remembered or replayed, he said.
EFF says AI note takers generate text, which is easier for outsiders to search than video or audio files.
“It’s not easy to store large amounts of video, it’s expensive and difficult to look up, but text is much easier to search and cheaper to store,” said Klosowski of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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