One-party vs. two-party consent

One-party consent and two-party consent are the two legal standards for how many people in a conversation must agree before it can be lawfully recorded. Under one-party consent, a single participant — which can be you — is enough. Under two-party consent (more accurately called all-party consent), everyone in the conversation must agree first. Which standard applies depends on the jurisdictions of the people on the call, not just where you happen to sit.

One-party consent

A recording is lawful as long as one participant consents — and that participant can be the person doing the recording. This is the default across much of the United States and many other countries. In practice it means you can record a call you’re part of without separately collecting agreement from everyone else.

Two-party (all-party) consent

Here every participant must agree before recording. “Two-party” is the common name, but it’s a misnomer once a call has three or more people — the real requirement is that all parties agree, which is why “all-party consent” is the precise term. About a dozen U.S. states use this standard, including California, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington.

Which rule applies when people are in different places

Remote calls routinely cross state and national lines, so the participants on a single call may be governed by different consent rules at the same time. There’s no universal tie-breaker, so the safe approach is to follow the strictest rule that could apply — treat the call as all-party consent. Outside the U.S., frameworks like the EU’s GDPR treat meeting audio as personal data, so participants should be informed regardless of headcount.

The shortcut: disclosure satisfies every regime

You don’t need to memorize a jurisdiction matrix. Telling participants that you’re capturing the meeting satisfies the consent requirement under one-party, all-party, and GDPR rules alike — a one-line heads-up at the top of the call, or a note in the calendar invite, is enough. See is it legal to record a meeting? for the longer breakdown and how to tell participants you’re using an AI notetaker for wording that doesn’t feel awkward.

This is general information, not legal advice — when participants span regions you’re unsure about, check the local rules or ask your legal team.

Consent vs. real-time notes

Consent rules are about recording — keeping a stored copy of a conversation. Getting live awareness of what’s being said is a separate thing. Canary is a real-time, bot-free meeting summarizer that reads your computer’s system audio locally to produce a live rolling summary, so you can stay oriented without necessarily archiving a recording. That reduces what you store — but it doesn’t remove the duty to be transparent. “No bot in the call” is not the same as “no one knows,” so the right default is always to tell people you’re capturing notes.