Is it legal for employers to record your interview?

Generally yes, as long as you know it is happening. A recorded interview you press record on yourself is consent in plain sight, so it is lawful almost everywhere. The grey area is secret recording of a live call. Your other real questions: who watches it, how long it is kept, and whether you can have it deleted.

This is a question candidates ask a lot, and a clear answer is harder to find than it should be. In recruiting forums the worry comes up again and again: once the role is filled, what happens to the recording, who keeps it, and can it be deleted. So here is the plain version: what is legal, what your rights are, and the few specific laws that back them up. None of this is legal advice. It is a clear map of how recorded interviews work and where the lines sit, so you can ask good questions and recognize a straight answer when you get one.

A note on terms. Most of this page is about the recorded interview, also called a one-way or asynchronous interview, where you answer set questions on your own camera with no interviewer present. That format is recorded by definition, so consent is rarely the issue there. The trickier consent questions come up with live calls, on Zoom or Teams, that someone records or transcribes. We cover both, and flag which is which.

The short answer: visible recording is almost always legal

Start with the distinction that resolves most of the worry. There is a world of difference between a recording you can see and a recording you cannot.

When you receive a one-way interview link and hit record yourself, you are consenting by your own action. The camera light is on, the screen says recording, you chose to begin. No serious legal regime treats that as a violation, because the entire point of consent law is that you know. The same is true when a live interviewer says “I’m going to record this session” and you stay on the call. That is informed, visible, and lawful.

The legal exposure lives almost entirely in the hidden case. A transcription bot that joins a video call without anyone announcing it. A recruiter quietly recording a phone screen. That is where consent law has teeth, and where an employer, not you, is the one at risk. It is a real scenario candidates raise: a live interview captured by an AI meeting recorder that nobody mentioned, in a state where everyone on the call has to agree first. So the working rule is simple. If you can see that you are being recorded, it is almost certainly legal. If you discover later that you were recorded without knowing, that is the situation worth questioning.

Consent: one party, all parties, and where you live

For live calls, US recording law turns on a single question: how many people on the call have to agree.

One-party-consent states, the majority, allow a recording as long as one person on the call knows and agrees. If the interviewer is recording and they are in a one-party state, that one party is them, and it is legal even if they did not make a point of telling you.

All-party-consent states, about a dozen including California, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington, require everyone on the call to agree before it can be recorded. This is the rule that makes a silent transcription bot legally risky. When the people on a call sit in different states, the stricter state’s rule is the safe assumption, which is why careful employers simply announce recording on every call.

For a one-way recorded interview, this whole debate mostly falls away. You are the only person present, and you are the one recording, so consent is not in dispute. The consent questions that matter for the asynchronous format are different, and they are about data, not about who agreed to press record. That is where notice laws and biometric laws come in.

Notice and AI: the Illinois rule worth knowing

A handful of US jurisdictions have moved past plain recording consent and now regulate the AI layer specifically. The clearest, and the one most worth knowing, is Illinois.

Under the Illinois Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act, in force since 2020, an employer that uses AI to analyze a recorded video interview must do three things before you record. Tell you that AI may be used. Explain, in terms you can understand, how the AI works and what general types of characteristics it considers. And get your consent to be evaluated that way. The same law gives you a deletion right we cover below. New York City separately requires bias audits of automated hiring tools and notice to candidates, and Colorado has passed a broader AI law covering hiring, though its rollout has been delayed and contested. You do not need to memorize any of this. The point is that in a growing list of places, you are legally entitled to be told what a tool does before you sit in front of it, and to decline. If you are unsure whether your interview is even scored by software, here is how to tell.

This is also why the facial-analysis era has faded. The largest vendor, HireVue, discontinued facial analysis in 2021, and notice-and-consent laws made the rest of the industry cautious. For the fuller story on what AI interviews actually measure now, see do AI interviews use facial recognition.

Biometrics: what BIPA covers, and what it does not

The strongest privacy law touching interviews is not about recording at all. It is about your body as data.

The Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, BIPA, governs biometric identifiers: a scan of your facial geometry, a voiceprint, anything that maps a unique physical signature. If an interview tool extracts that kind of data from your video, BIPA requires the employer to give written notice, obtain your written consent, and publish a schedule for how long the data is kept and when it is destroyed. It also lets people sue, and the penalties are large enough that companies treat it seriously.

Here is the part that calms the worry. BIPA does not turn every recording into a biometric event. A video that a recruiter simply watches is not a faceprint. Storing a clip of you talking is not, by itself, collecting biometric data. The law bites when software measures your face or voice to identify or model you, which is exactly the practice that has been retreating. So for the typical recorded interview, where a person reviews your answers or AI scores the transcript of your words, BIPA is usually not in play. Where a tool does analyze your face, BIPA is one of the laws standing behind your right to be told and to refuse.

Outside the US: GDPR and the right to erasure

If you are interviewing with a company in Europe or the UK, or one that handles European applicants, the framework changes shape. The General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, treats an interview recording as personal data, which means the employer needs a clear lawful basis to record and store it and must tell you they are doing so. Vague, buried, or absent notice is not enough.

GDPR also gives you stronger standing rights than most US states. You can ask what an employer holds about you, and you have a right to erasure, often called the right to be forgotten, which lets you request that your data be deleted when there is no good reason to keep it. And the regulation says personal data should not be retained for longer than necessary, so a recording is not supposed to live on a server forever once the position is filled. The practical effect for a candidate is real leverage: in Europe, “please delete my interview recording” is not a favor you are asking, it is a right you are exercising.

Who can actually watch it

Set the law aside for a moment, because the everyday question is simpler. Who sees this?

For a normal recorded interview, the audience is the hiring team for that role. That usually means a recruiter, the hiring manager, and sometimes a small panel of interviewers, exactly the people who would have met you in a room. The file also sits on the interview platform’s servers, so the vendor technically holds it under its contract with the employer, the same way any cloud tool holds the data you put into it. What it is not: it is not posted anywhere public, and reputable platforms do not sell candidate recordings. The fear that your clip gets traded or shows up somewhere online is not how these systems work.

If you want certainty rather than a general reassurance, ask. A short, polite question to the recruiter, who will view this and how long is it stored, is completely reasonable, and the answer tells you something about the employer either way. You also retain the ordinary right to refuse. If a recorded format genuinely does not work for you, you can ask for a live alternative, which overlaps with requesting an accommodation when there is a disability or access reason. And the narrower questions people ask, like whether you can turn the camera off, usually come down to the same move: ask the employer what their tool allows.

How long it is kept, and getting it deleted

Retention is the piece with the least uniform answer, so here is the realistic version.

In the US, there is no single national clock. Most retention is governed by company policy, and many employers keep hiring records for a period of months up to a couple of years, partly to defend against discrimination claims. The sharpest statutory rule is the Illinois one already mentioned: under the AI Video Interview Act, if AI analysis was used on your interview, the employer must destroy it and instruct any third parties holding copies to destroy it within 30 days of your request. That 30-day window is the single most concrete deletion right in US interview law, which is why it is worth knowing the phrase. In Europe, GDPR’s “no longer than necessary” principle and the right to erasure push in the same direction without a fixed number.

If you want a recording gone, the steps are the same everywhere:

1. Put it in writing. Email the recruiter, or the company’s privacy or data-protection contact if it has one. A written request creates a record and starts any legal clock.
2. Name what you are asking for. Be specific: you are requesting that your interview recording, and any copies, be deleted. If you are in Illinois and AI was used, you can reference the 30-day deletion right. If GDPR applies, you can reference your right to erasure.
3. Keep your copy. Save the email you sent and any reply. If a deletion right applies and the employer ignores it, that paper trail is what matters.

Even where no statute forces their hand, plenty of employers will honor a reasonable deletion request, because refusing looks worse than complying. Asking costs you nothing and tells you who you are dealing with.

The bottom line

A recorded interview you can see is almost always legal, because you consented by recording it. The real lines are about hidden recording of live calls, where some states require everyone to agree, and about data: what gets extracted, who holds it, and how long. A short list of laws backs your rights. Illinois requires notice and consent before AI analyzes your video and forces deletion within 30 days on request. BIPA protects your face and voice as biometric data. GDPR, in Europe, gives you a right to be told and a right to be forgotten. None of that requires you to become a lawyer. It just means that when you wonder who is watching and what happens to the file, you are allowed to ask, and in more and more places, you are entitled to an answer.

If the underlying worry is less about the law and more about whether the format is fair to begin with, read are one-way interviews fair. If it is about what the software is doing to your recording, do AI interviews use facial recognition and is your interview scored by AI pick up there.