Recording & Consent

Last updated: 2026-05-27

Nod is in private beta, built by an individual developer. The guidance below reflects how the product actually behaves today; the legal rules of where you live always take precedence over anything on this page.

Nod records and transcribes meetings on your Mac. Recording a conversation — even one you're participating in — is regulated by law, and the rules differ significantly by country and by US state. You are responsible for obtaining consent from everyone on the call before you start recording with Nod.

This page is a practical guide. It is not legal advice — when in doubt, consult a lawyer in your jurisdiction.

What Nod does (and doesn't do)

  • Nod runs entirely on your Mac. We do not post a notification into the Zoom / Google Meet / Microsoft Teams chat for you. We don't have access to the chat — there is no Nod bot in the meeting.
  • Nod shows you a one-time consent reminder before your very first recording. Every acknowledgement is recorded in an audit log (consent_acknowledgements table) tied to your account, the exact wording you saw, and your app version.
  • You must inform the other participants. The simplest path is to tell them verbally at the start of the call, or paste the template message below into the meeting chat.
  • Audio is never stored — it is transcribed in ~5-second chunks and immediately discarded. Only the transcript and the AI-generated summary remain. See Security & Privacy for details.

A simple rule of thumb

Even where the law allows one-party consent, best practice is to tell everyone on the call that you're recording. It's professional, it builds trust, and it sidesteps most jurisdictional ambiguity.

Recording laws fall into two broad regimes:

One-party consent — only one party to the conversation (which can be you) needs to consent. Examples (non-exhaustive): the United Kingdom for personal use, most Canadian provinces, the majority of US states.

All-party (two-party) consent — every participant must be informed and consent. Examples: California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Washington, plus much of the European Union under GDPR for any recording that captures personal data of non-consenting participants.

When participants are in different jurisdictions, the most restrictive rule usually applies — if even one person is in an all-party state, treat the call as all-party.

This is a simplified summary, not legal advice. Laws change. Edge cases exist (workplace recordings, recordings used as evidence, etc.). If your business depends on getting this right — talk to a lawyer.

Template participant notice

Paste this in the meeting chat at the start of the call:

"Heads up — I'm using Nod to take AI-generated notes for this meeting. It transcribes the conversation locally on my Mac and produces a summary for me afterwards. No audio is stored. If you'd prefer I don't record, just let me know and I'll turn it off."

Or, in Ukrainian:

"Невелика примітка — я використовую Nod, щоб робити AI-нотатки з цієї зустрічі. Він транскрибує розмову локально на моєму Mac і робить для мене коротке summary. Аудіо ніде не зберігається. Якщо не хочеш, щоб я записував — просто скажи і я вимкну."

What participants can ask for

If a meeting participant wants their data removed from your Nod history, they should contact you (the recorder) — Nod doesn't have a relationship with them. You can:

  1. Delete the meeting from the app. It goes to a 30-day trash, then it is permanently and automatically purged from our database.
  2. Email dbarabashdev@gmail.com if you need confirmation that a specific meeting has been deleted.

If you are a participant who has been recorded without your consent and wants the recording removed, contact dbarabashdev@gmail.com with the name and email of the Nod user, the approximate date/time of the meeting, and a description. We will take reasonable steps to identify and assist with deletion.

Automatic in-meeting notice — on the roadmap

We're evaluating an opt-in feature that copies a consent message to your clipboard (or pastes it into the meeting chat via accessibility automation) when you press record. If this is important to your team, let us know at dbarabashdev@gmail.com.

Questions? dbarabashdev@gmail.com.