AI meeting notes that respect privacy (consent, nDSG)

By the end of this guide, your team gets a written summary and action list after every internal meeting without anyone taking notes. Everyone in the room knows it is happening, has agreed to it, and you know where the transcript is stored and when it gets deleted.

AI note-takers are among the easiest wins there are. They are also the easiest way to break Swiss law by accident. Recording a private conversation without the other participants’ consent is a criminal offence in Switzerland, even when you are one of the participants (Swiss Criminal Code, Art. 179ter). So consent comes first, then the tool.

What you need

• A note-taker. The simplest choice is the one built into your video tool:
  • Microsoft Teams with a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence (CHF 17.00 per user per month, annual, excl. VAT, Microsoft CH), or
  • Google Meet’s “Take notes for me”, which needs an eligible Google Workspace edition or Google AI plan (Meet Help).
  • Separate tools such as Otter, Fireflies or tl;dv are compared in this week’s tool review.
• This week’s template: the consent script and the meeting summary prompt.
• Time: about 1.5 hours once (rules plus setup), then 1 minute per meeting.
• Skill level: no technical skills needed. An admin may need to switch features on.

Steps

1. Write your three-line meeting recording rule (20 minutes)

Before anyone presses a button, decide and write down:

1. Which meetings may be transcribed. Example: internal team meetings and project meetings. Not: staff reviews, sick-leave talks, disciplinary meetings, anything with health data.
2. Who must agree. Everyone present, every time. For external guests (clients, suppliers), ask at the start and accept a no without discussion.
3. How long transcripts are kept. Example: transcript deleted after 30 days; the summary is kept with the project.

Add these three lines to your staff AI policy. Tell the team in your next meeting.

You should end up with a rule short enough to read out in 20 seconds.