By Christine Sensenig, Esq.
Christine Sensenig, Esq. Courtesy, Sensenig law firm
How many of you have encountered AI notetakers out in the wild yet?
If you’re not using notetakers at your own workplace, chances are you’ve already been recorded by one. They’re extremely popular with doctor’s offices in particular, where your consent for such recording can be subtly obtained alongside the customary “unwieldy pile of intake forms,” slipped behind the boilerplate HIPAA acknowledgement.
Notetaking might be one of the ways in which AI has a practical application. The bar for AI is pretty low at this point in time, because so-called “AI” is literally just glorified autocorrect, and attempting to use it for any serious purpose, such as business emails or (heaven forbid) actual contracts or other employment documents, will surely end badly (More about that in my extended post.)
Which brings us to the topic at hand: AI notetaking, and the class action lawsuit (In re Otter.AI Privacy Litigation that’s working its way through the courts) that might bankrupt multiple businesses that just had to jump on the AI bandwagon without policies, training, and proper planning.
AI notetakers are purportedly exactly that: they’re a computer program that records and summarizes a meeting. They’re convenient, and fairly accurate, so why all the snarky leadup? Well, because while AI notetakers do indeed take notes, that’s not what their actual purpose is. Their purpose is surveillance and “training” data for the AI company. Because no matter how many forms you sign or premiums you pay, not a single word spoken into a Chat GPT, Claude, or Grok AI notetaker is private, as these are open systems.
Client names, legal strategies, medical information, social security numbers, you name it: everything is stored on the AI company’s servers and used to “train” the very AI program you’re using as a transcriber.
Worse still, these servers are vulnerable to, and routinely infiltrated by, hackers. The data is also routinely sold to anyone willing to pay, including advertisers and the US government. As everything entered into Notes becomes a part of the AI’s language model, your data will be used in other customers’ AI-generated documents. When AI needs to invent a placeholder name or social security number for an unrelated user, it might “decide” to use the data it recorded from you, thereby implicating you in a data breach that could end in civil lawsuits, and even criminal charges.
It gets worse! Many huge multi-national companies have begun using AI to screen job applications. The problem is that these AI programs have been caught doing things like automatically rejecting applications from specific protected categories. Now, if a human being systemically shredded all applications from black applicants, that’s obviously legally actionable discrimination. But who is liable when an AI program does the same thing? Because we all know it won’t be the AI companies themselves.
Don’t be caught holding the bag when this comes crashing down. AI is not going away; we need to learn how best to govern and manage it but never lose sight of the fact that nothing entered into an open AI program is secure in any sense of the word. Inputting certain data into these open programs might be unlawful in and of itself, even before we get to issues like data brokers selling your clients’ information to any willing buyer. To review recent litigation where these issues and more are in play, take a look at Brewer v. Otter.AI, Inc. lawsuit.
Christine Sensenig is Founder of the Sensenig law firm in Sarasota, with a statewide practice focusing on employment law, and a distinguished human resource background in employer best practices. You can reach her at (941) 953-2828, or by email at [email protected]
LMA Newsletter of 6-1-26
