Meeting recording privacy: where your audio goes

Meeting recording privacy comes down to three questions: what is recorded, who processes it, and how long it is kept. In MeetFlovv, each piece of meeting audio is deleted right after it is transcribed. The transcript is kept for 48 hours after your notes are ready, then deleted. Your notes stay until you delete them. Outside services process your meeting along the way: a speech-to-text provider, an AI language-model provider and, for the notes-ready email, an email provider (Brevo). This article explains what each one receives.

Here is the full path, step by step.

What is captured

MeetFlovv captures audio, not video, plus speaker timing from Google Meet's captions.

• With the Chrome extension, it records the meeting tab's audio and your microphone, and your microphone only while Google Meet shows you as unmuted.
• With MeetFlovv Bot, it records the call from the bot's own seat in the meeting. The bot keeps its own camera and microphone off.

Capture starts only when you start it, either by choosing Start Notes in the extension or by sending the bot to a meeting. If you turn on Calendar auto-join (Pro and Business), the bot joins eligible meetings on your calendar, and you can skip any single meeting. The bot always shows up in the participant list under its own name.

Step 1: audio arrives in 15-second pieces

The extension and the bot send audio to MeetFlovv in 15-second pieces while the meeting runs. Each piece is stored on MeetFlovv's server until it has been transcribed, plus a short delay described in step 2.

Step 2: transcription, then audio deletion

Each piece is sent to a speech-to-text provider, which returns the words and their timing. MeetFlovv stores those words as transcript segments. If that provider is unavailable, MeetFlovv transcribes the piece on its own servers instead.

Then the audio is deleted. To catch words spoken right on the boundary between two pieces, MeetFlovv keeps each file until the piece after it has been transcribed too, because transcription can use the end of the previous piece as context, and then deletes it. A cleanup job runs every minute and removes any file that is left over, such as the last piece of a meeting, at most about ten minutes after it was transcribed.

Audio that has not been transcribed yet is not deleted early. If a piece fails to process, MeetFlovv keeps it so it can try again, rather than losing part of your meeting. Audio that could not be transcribed is kept for recovery, and leftovers from an interrupted bot session have no automatic deletion deadline yet.

Step 3: notes from the transcript

When the meeting ends and all audio has been transcribed, MeetFlovv sends the transcript, as text, to an AI language-model provider, plus any fallback providers, to write the notes. The model receives text, not audio.

The notes have a fixed structure: summary, key points, decisions, action items and open questions. They are stored in your MeetFlovv account. When they are ready, MeetFlovv also emails you once through its email provider, Brevo. That email carries the meeting's title, date and duration, the first lines of the summary and a link, and you can turn it off in Settings.

Step 4: the transcript expires

Once your notes have been saved successfully, MeetFlovv sets a deadline of 48 hours on the meeting's transcript and speaker timing. A cleanup job deletes them after that deadline. In practice deletion can happen a little later than the exact 48-hour mark, because the job runs every ten minutes.

If writing the notes fails, the deadline is not set. MeetFlovv keeps the transcript so the notes can be generated again, instead of deleting the only copy of your meeting.

If you want to keep a transcript longer than 48 hours, export it as Markdown or plain text from the meeting page before it expires.

Bot diagnostic screenshots

There is one exception to "audio only", and you should know about it. When a bot session fails, for example when the bot cannot join a meeting or fails partway through one, the bot saves a diagnostic screenshot of its own browser window. We use it to find out why the session failed and to fix the problem.

A screenshot shows whatever the bot's browser was displaying at that moment, which can include participant names, video tiles and captions. We also write a short excerpt of the page's text to our logs. Nothing is taken in a session that goes normally. A screenshot is stored on MeetFlovv's server and does not yet have an automatic deletion deadline. You can ask us to delete it at any time by emailing contact@meetflovv.com.

Data retention at a glance

Database backups follow their own schedule, and the speech-to-text and language-model providers handle data under their own terms. Our privacy policy lists every kind of service that processes your data.

Who can see your meetings

Each meeting belongs to the account that captured it. MeetFlovv checks ownership on the server for every request, so one user cannot open another user's meetings, transcripts or notes.

Other protections:

• All traffic to MeetFlovv is encrypted with HTTPS.
• Passwords are stored only as one-way hashes.
• If you connect Google for Calendar auto-join, the Google token is stored encrypted, and MeetFlovv asks only for read-only access to your calendar events and Meet spaces.
• MeetFlovv does not sell your data or use it for advertising, and data from Google's Calendar and Meet APIs is not used to train AI models.

What MeetFlovv does not do

Some things are worth stating plainly, because they are common worries about meeting tools:

• MeetFlovv does not record video of your meeting. The only images it ever saves are the failure screenshots described above.
• It does not join meetings you did not choose. The bot only joins when you send it, or when Calendar auto-join is on and the event meets its rules.
• It does not listen to your microphone while Google Meet shows you as muted.
• It does not keep audio as a recording you can replay later. Audio is deleted right after transcription, apart from the short delay in step 2 and the recovery cases described above.

Your controls

• Delete a meeting to remove its notes and the transcript and audio data stored with it. Failure screenshots and database backups follow the rules above.
• Delete your account to remove your meetings and settings.
• Disconnect Google in Settings, or revoke access from your Google Account.
• Skip a meeting from Calendar auto-join, or turn auto-join off entirely.
• Ask for a copy or deletion of your data by emailing contact@meetflovv.com.

Recording consent is part of privacy

Meeting recording privacy is also about the other people in the call. You are responsible for telling them that the meeting is being transcribed, and for getting any consent your local law requires. Some places require everyone's consent before a call is recorded.

MeetFlovv is built to make capture visible rather than hidden. The bot is visible in the participant list. It cannot get past a waiting room, a meeting password or host approval. With the extension, nothing joins the call, so say that you are taking notes at the start.

A simple habit covers most situations: mention it in the invite, say it at the start, and skip the meeting when someone would rather not be recorded.

Further reading

• AI meeting notes for Google Meet, explained shows what the notes contain.
• Google Meet transcription: extension or bot? compares the two ways to capture a call.
• Questions about your data? Email contact@meetflovv.com or use the contact page.