Participant Consent

When you run interviews through UserTold, you are the data controller for your participants' data and UserTold is your processor. That means obtaining a valid legal basis — usually consent — from each participant before recording is your responsibility, not ours. This guide shows you how to do it correctly. It is practical guidance, not legal advice; when in doubt, consult a lawyer in your jurisdiction.

Why this matters

A recording captured without a valid basis is unlawful to process — and the exposure is yours, because you decide who to interview and why. Getting consent right protects you, respects your participants, and keeps the evidence you collect usable. The good news: a clear disclosure plus an affirmative action is enough in most cases, and the widget is built to capture it.

What every participant must be told before recording

Disclose, in plain language, before capture begins:

  • That the session is recorded — audio, and screen if your study enables screen capture.
  • Who is recording — your company name (you, the study owner), and that UserTold processes the recording on your behalf.
  • What it's used for — that an AI conducts the interview and turns it into a report your team uses.
  • That it's voluntary — they can stop any time by closing the widget.
  • How to reach you — and where to find your privacy notice.

The widget shows a disclosure above the microphone-permission prompt, and the participant's Allow access click is their affirmative action. The disclosure copy is versioned, so you can later prove what each participant saw.

GDPR (EU/EEA participants)

You need a lawful basis under GDPR Art. 6 to record. In practice:

  • Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) is the cleanest basis for voluntary research interviews. It must be freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous — a pre-ticked box or silence is not consent.
  • Participants can withdraw consent at any time; honour it and stop processing going forward.
  • Configure your intake consent text to state the points above. Do not bury it.

Special-category data (Art. 9)

Open-ended interviews can surface health, beliefs, political opinions, or other special-category data that a participant volunteers. If your interview design predictably elicits this, you need an Art. 9(2) condition — almost always explicit consent. Add an explicit-consent line to your intake consent text for those studies, and avoid prompting for sensitive topics you don't need.

United States — recording-consent laws

US recording law is set by state, and the strict ones matter:

  • One-party-consent states (the majority): one participant's consent is enough — and that's you, the recorder, when paired with clear notice.
  • All-party ("two-party") consent states — including California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington — require every participant to consent to being recorded.
  • When participants are in different states, the strictest standard generally applies; California's rule has been held to reach any session to or from California.

Practical rule: always show a clear "this session is recorded" disclosure and require the affirmative Allow access click. If you interview US consumers, treat all-party consent as your default so you're covered everywhere.

Minors

Don't deploy the widget to audiences likely to include children below the applicable digital-consent age — 14 in Spain (LOPDGDD Art. 7), 13 under US COPPA, and 13–16 across the EU depending on the Member State. If minors are in scope, you need verifiable parental consent and should design for it explicitly.

  1. In your study's intake, set the consent text to cover: recording (audio + screen if enabled), your identity, purpose, voluntariness, and a link to your privacy notice.
  2. For studies that may surface special-category data, add an explicit-consent line.
  3. Keep the disclosure visible before the participant grants microphone access — don't rely on a buried link.
  4. Leave the default "recorded" disclosure in place; it is versioned for your audit trail.

Sample consent text

This session is recorded (audio[, and your screen]) by [Your Company], who uses UserTold to run the interview and turn it into a report. Taking part is voluntary — you can stop any time by closing the window. We don't use your recording to identify you. See [Your Company]'s privacy notice at [link]. By clicking Allow access you agree to be recorded[ and confirm you are 18 or older].

Deletion requests

If a participant asks to delete their recording, you (the study owner) can delete the interview from your dashboard. If a participant contacts UserTold directly, we route the request to you. Build a quick internal process to honour these within a reasonable time — GDPR expects a response within one month.

Quick checklist

  • Intake consent text states recording, identity, purpose, voluntariness, privacy-notice link
  • Explicit-consent line added for studies that may surface Art. 9 data
  • Disclosure shown before microphone access
  • All-party-consent default if interviewing US participants
  • Not targeting audiences likely to include minors below the consent age
  • A process to action participant deletion requests

For how UserTold handles the data once captured, see the Privacy Policy and the Data Processing Agreement.