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Hey! 1. Notion records audio only during your use of the Meeting Notes feature. Here are the docs: https://www.notion.com/help/ai-meeting-notes https://www.not
by wustep 1y ago
Hey!
1. Notion records audio only during your use of the Meeting Notes feature. Here are the docs: https://www.notion.com/help/ai-meeting-notes https://www.notion.com/help/ai-meeting-notes
2. Notion desktop app has notifications about meetings that ask you if you want to use Meeting Notes, it recognizes this by detecting that your microphone is on (i.e. it does not listen to audio coming from your microphone). This feature is a setting in preferences btw, under Notifications > Desktop meeting detection notification.
source: I work for Notion
- chinathrow 1y agoFrom 1) > If you do not want the AI Meeting Notes feature available to your users, administrators may opt-out their workspace at any time via the toggle available in their console. Here's your problem: Make this opt-in.
- rchaud 1y agoAI features + user opt-in are mutually exclusive at this point.
- jitl 1y agoTo elaborate: The Notion desktop app will observe if there is a process running on your computer that is actively using your microphone, such as Zoom. Notion does not and cannot listen to the audio coming from your microphone ambiently or snoop on the signal received by another application. This detection is done purely based on the existing of a process using your microphone, not on the audio coming from the microphone. Users can verify this because the OS-level microphone indicator will show that Notion is not listening to their microphone. If one is detected, Notion will notify the user and try to associate it with a calendar event if you have connected your calendar. Connecting your calendar is not a requirement to receive this notification. Users can disable this behavior via their account settings in Settings > Notifications > Desktop meeting detection notifications. Only when the user has started a meeting note and clicked record, will Notion activate the user's microphone. We cannot do this without operating system mediated consent dialog, which is the way it should be! At this point Notion will show up as using the microphone in the OS indicators. (I work at Notion)
- chinathrow 1y agoMake it opt-in and this would be not an issue.
- jitl 1y agoNotion doesn't like making things opt-in. A feature that's opt-in will get like 1% of the use of a feature that's opt-out. A happier middle ground would be to enable by default and show a "I don't like this, pls turn it off" button the first few times. EDIT: shouldn't single out any specific role here. We think opt-out, enable-by-default makes a feature have far greater total utility. But we could do more to provide user agency for these features in-line during first use or find a different balance point.
- chinathrow 1y agoYour new feature is privacy invading. It's none of your business to detect if someones mic is on unless they invite you to do that. What is so hard about that? > Our PMs don't like making things opt-in. Lamest excuse ever. I wouldn't be surprised if you phoned back home about that mic activation - do you? I recently joined an org where Notion is in use - I will actively lobby them to not install the desktop app, at all or to quit Notion alltogether.
- hackinthebochs 1y agoWhat exactly is the privacy issue with detecting when a process begins using the microphone?
- bayindirh 1y agoFollowing my habits, and reporting to a data broker that how I use my microphone, allowing even more precise profiling of my life circumstances or habits.
- 1y ago
- wustep 1y agoFWIW, you can verify when any apps are recording microphone input by the OS's microphone indicator. I think Windows, Mac, and Linux all have one. (edit: see what @jitl said)
- CubsFan1060 1y agoIf it helps, this has been one of the most infuriating things for me in recent memory. I don't understand why this wasn't opt-in.
- wustep 1y agothanks, will fwd to team you're talking about the desktop notification in particular, right?
- CubsFan1060 1y agoYeah. I mean, the rest is concerning. But one day it just started popping up every time I went into a meeting. Which, of course, was exactly the time that I was busy in a meeting, and didn't have time to dig through settings to figure out how to turn it off.
- incoming1211 1y ago* team receives feedback "Bin it, no one will turn it on, make them turn it off if they don't want it"
- fusslo 1y ago"It's just one user, we have x users who haven't complained. Not an issue"
- chaps 1y agoDoes any of that microphone detection stuff send anything over the network to Notion to indicate that the check was done, plus the check's results?
- jitl 1y agolet me look EDIT: no, there's no transmission of logs or analytics events besides a check to see if the feature is enabled. We only transmit some data if you ask Notion to record.
- chaps 1y agoThanks for the answer. Just want to clarify for pedantic reasons - is there transmission regardless of whether it's enabled or disabled? And does that happen only if someone asks Notion to record?
- jitl 1y agoIf you ask Notion to record will record if you don’t ask to record, we won’t record
- DrillShopper 1y agoCan you give me a source beyond "just trust me, bro"?
- wustep 1y agoyour OS shows a microphone icon when apps are recording audio — when you use the app, you should see that when recording is on during the meeting transcription and off otherwise
- benaubin 1y agoour app is electron and you can open the chromium dev tools via the help menu. if you want to verify yourself.
- dml2135 1y agoWhy didn't Notion ask for my affirmative consent before monitoring my network traffic? Are there other cases where Notion is monitoring my network traffic? If so, what are they?
- wustep 1y agoThere's no network traffic monitoring, not sure what the support agent is talking about -- I think they misunderstood something. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Notion/comments/1i4ypl8/comment/m8otss2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Notion/comments/1i4ypl8/comment/m8o... for info about the "local network access" permission
- fusslo 1y agoHow does it work in two-party consent states? Like, I can give my consent, but the meeting attendees can't, right? Does Notion just listen to me, not my attendees? I only ask because we got an email about recording meetings from HR/Legal a couple weeks ago and I never considered it before
- 93po 1y agoi assume it's the user's responsibility to use software legally
- fusslo 1y agoI think you're probably right I believe it's Notion, not me, who is doing the recording. And Notion doesn't require everyone's consent, just mine. So if I am to take your meaning, it'd be up to me to disable the meeting notes if any other attendee is in a 2 party consent state (assuming everyone is in the US, IDK how other countries handle that)
- 93po 1y agoIn two party consent states, don't need explicit consent from the other party, you just have to tell them you're recording or using a live transcription service that captures but doesn't store audio. But explicit consent is better (which can just be them acknowledging what you said with "ok") if you ever need to defend yourself. With Notion it's still you doing the recording, you're the one using software and clicking a button to record.