There may be occasions where members of the public choose to record a meeting that you are facilitating or attending in your capacity as a Council staff member. This may be an audio or video recording and they may do this for various reasons, for example so they can make notes later and don’t miss important information or to share the information relating to their care and support with their next of kin who is unable to attend the meeting.

Members of the public are not subject to data protection laws as they fall within the domestic purposes exemption therefore we cannot prevent them from recording. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) defines domestic purposes exemptions as ‘personal data processed in the course of a purely personal or household activity, with no connection to a professional or commercial activity’.

We can ask people not to upload recordings to social media and if they do so we might ask social media companies to remove it. This is due to the possibility that sharing recordings publicly means that this recording no longer falls within the domestic processing exemptions. If you are unhappy about being recorded then you can leave the meeting. This would be considered reasonable where for example you feel anxious about your security if the recording was made public.

If Council staff are recording meetings and there is no intention to use the material for publicity or to make it available to people outside the council, who have a work related reason to see it, then this would fall under the council’s lawful processing of public task and the attendees’ permission is not required. There is no need to ask their permission to be recorded. You need to tell people they are being recorded but, if they would like to turn their video off and /or use chat rather than speech then this should be respected. You may need to reassure people that recordings are used for council purposes only and are kept securely and only for as long as needed. There is more information on Essentials.

If you want to record people for use in publicity or to use their speech/images publicly then you must ask for consent before proceeding. Information on general data protection regulation and consent for Council staff to take photographs etc can be found on Essentials together with the relevant forms. The easy read consent form can be found on the CLDS resources page. Information on how Adult Social Care process information can also be found in the Privacy Notice.

Further information can be found on the ICO website and if you have any questions please contact the Data Protection Advice Team.