Video recording the owners' meeting: consent is required

Filming the owners' meeting, streaming it or recording its video involves the image and voice of the participants, which are personal data in every respect. For this reason filming is not free: as a rule it requires the prior consent of those present, unless another legal basis applies. The online meeting, now allowed by law, is a different case, where remote connection follows its own rules. In every situation what counts remains the minutes, not the footage. Let us see how to proceed.

Image and voice are personal data

Filming a person means processing their image, and recording their voice during interventions means processing a further piece of personal data. A meeting often discusses sensitive matters, personal positions, financial situations: a video keeps everything permanently and reproducibly. For this reason filming the meeting is not a neutral act and must have a solid legal basis, which in most cases coincides with the participants' consent.

Why consent is needed

In the absence of another legal basis, recording or streaming the meeting requires the prior, informed consent of all those present. Consent must be free: anyone who does not wish to be filmed has the right to object and their wishes must be respected. A majority decision of the assembly is not enough to legitimise filming someone who objects, because the right to the protection of one's data is individual. Whoever records without consent is exposed to complaints and liability.

The online meeting

The law allows the meeting to be held in an online form, that is, by video conference, if the by-laws provide for it or the assembly resolves it. Remote connection in itself entails processing the participants' image and voice through the platform used. Here too the general principles apply: inform participants about the processing, limit the purposes to running the meeting and do not record the session except on an adequate legal basis. The video conference serves to pass resolutions, not to build a permanent video archive.

• Obtain prior consent before recording or streaming the session.
• Respect the objection of anyone who does not want to be filmed.
• Inform participants about purposes and processing in the online meeting too.
• Do not keep the video beyond the strictly necessary time.
• Remember that it is the minutes, not the footage, that prove the decisions.

The minutes are the act that counts

Whatever the format of the meeting, the act that officially documents the decisions is the minutes, drawn up and signed under the rules of the Italian Civil Code. The footage has no evidential value for the resolutions and does not replace the minutes. Whoever records thinking to secure evidence often carries out excessive and genuinely useless processing: the formal correctness of the meeting is proven by the minutes, the attendance register and the signatures, not by a video.

Recording by a single owner

It happens that a single owner secretly records the meeting on a smartphone. This too is processing of others' personal data. The strictly personal use of the recording, for example to remember what was said, may fall within a more tolerated sphere, but disclosure to third parties, online publication or use for other purposes falls outside any exemption and becomes unlawful. Prudence requires not to disclose others' images and voices without their consent.

Retention and deletion

If a recording was lawfully made with consent, it must nevertheless be kept only for the time strictly necessary to the stated purpose and then deleted. Keeping video archives of meetings indefinitely is disproportionate to the purpose, since the decisions are already documented by the minutes. Data minimisation requires limiting not only what is recorded, but also how long it is kept, with scheduled deletion on expiry.

Managing convening notices, minutes, the attendance register and proxies in an orderly, traceable way is the soundest route to documenting the meeting while respecting privacy: with AmministraPro the manager records and archives the sessions without needing any video footage. The features are described on the features page and the plans on the pricing page.