Recording job interviews in Ireland: the interception law, GDPR and what the DPC expects

In Ireland, a recruiter can generally record their own phone or video interview without committing the interception offence: section 98 of the Postal and Telecommunications Services Act 1983, as amended in 1993, does not treat listening or recording as interception where the sender or the intended recipient of the message has consented. The recording is still personal data, so the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 apply: you need a lawful basis, must tell the candidate before you start, must keep it only as long as you can justify, and must answer access requests within a month. This is the position as of October 2026.

This page adds Ireland to our country series alongside the UK, Germany, Canada and Australia. Ireland's interception rule is closer to Canada's one-party approach than to Germany's, but its data protection layer is the EU GDPR, enforced by the Data Protection Commission (DPC), and the DPC has published a recent decision on keeping recruitment records that is worth reading before you set a retention period.

The Irish rules at a glance

Can one participant record a call in Ireland?

Generally yes. Section 98(1) of the Postal and Telecommunications Services Act 1983 makes it an offence to intercept, attempt to intercept, or authorise or enable someone else to intercept telecommunications messages. As enacted in 1983, "interception" required the agreement of both the sender and the intended recipient. In 1993, section 13 of the Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act replaced that definition. The new subsection (6) says that "intercept" means "listen to, or record by any means, in the course of its transmission, a telecommunications message but does not include such listening or recording where either the person on whose behalf the message is transmitted or the person intended to receive the message has consented to the listening or recording."

Two practical points follow. First, a recruiter recording an interview they take part in is either the sender or the intended recipient, so their own consent takes the recording outside the definition. Second, the section was written for messages carried on licensed telecommunications networks: the 1999 amendment extended it from the old state telephone company to any licensed operator. How it applies to an internet video platform is a question for Irish counsel. Either way, the criminal law is not the binding constraint for a recruiter in Ireland; data protection law is.

What does the GDPR require for the recording and transcript?

A recording, transcript or AI-written summary of an interview is personal data about the candidate, so the GDPR, supplemented in Ireland by the Data Protection Act 2018, applies in full:

• A lawful basis (Article 6). The realistic options are steps taken at the candidate's request before entering into a contract (Article 6(1)(b)), legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)) or consent (Article 6(1)(a)). Consent must be freely given, which is difficult when one side is deciding whether to hire the other, so consider legitimate interests with a clear notice instead. Our guide to legitimate interest in recruitment walks through the test.
• Information before you start (Article 13). Tell the candidate that the interview will be recorded or transcribed, why, who will see it, how long it is kept and how to object or ask for a copy. Put it in the invitation and your privacy notice, then say it again at the start of the call.
• Minimization. If notes would do, ask whether a full recording is necessary. A transcript without stored audio is usually a smaller footprint than audio or video.
• Automated decisions (Article 22). If a tool scores or ranks candidates and a decision rests solely on it, Article 22 applies. Keep a human making the decision.

How long can you keep recordings of unsuccessful candidates?

The GDPR does not fix a period, but the DPC has been specific about what it expects. In Case Study 14 of its 2025 case studies, an unsuccessful applicant asked for their recruitment data to be erased. The organisation refused, citing a policy of keeping all information about unsuccessful applications for 12 months to defend possible complaints to the Workplace Relations Commission under the Employment Equality Acts. The DPC noted that such a complaint can be lodged within six months of the alleged discrimination, with a possible extension of a further six months in certain circumstances.

The DPC's takeaways are useful for any interview recording policy: although the GDPR does not mandate specific retention periods, controllers "must be able to justify their chosen retention periods," and an organisation that refuses an erasure request must clearly identify the exemption it relies on, here Article 17(3)(e) on legal claims. In practice, write down your period for recordings and transcripts, tie it to that complaint window, and delete on schedule. Our candidate data retention policy template gives a starting structure.

Can a candidate ask for the recording or transcript?

Yes. The candidate has the right of access under Article 15 GDPR. The DPC says a controller must act without undue delay and in any event within one month of receiving a request, extendable by two further months where necessary given the complexity and number of requests, telling the person within the first month and explaining why (DPC, how long will it take). That includes transcripts, AI summaries and scorecards that quote the candidate, so make sure you can find them by name. See candidate data access requests for a workflow.

What if you interview a candidate in Ireland from the US?

The Irish interception rule is unlikely to trouble a participant, but the US side of the call has its own rules, which depend on the state you are in; some states require every party's consent. See is it legal to record a job interview. For data protection, an employer or agency established in the EU is covered by the GDPR under Article 3(1); whether a US company with no EU establishment is covered depends on Article 3(2). The practical course is to give every candidate in Ireland the same GDPR notice you would give anyone else.

Can you use AI note takers or transcription?

Yes, on the same footing as a recording. Treat live transcription as recording for notice purposes, tell the candidate which tool is used and whether audio is kept, and check where the provider processes it. If the tool evaluates candidates rather than only transcribing, look at the EU AI Act's rules for recruitment systems (the EU AI Act for recruiting) as well as Article 22 GDPR.

Tools differ in how much they keep. Interview Signal, for example, joins no call as a bot, shows a read-aloud consent line and has a one-click pause, sends audio to a speech-to-text provider in short chunks during the call without keeping it, and stores transcripts on the recruiter's own computer. The transcript is still personal data, so the rules above still apply.

A consent line for interviews in Ireland

Before we start: I'd like to [record / transcribe with software] this
interview so I can focus on you and get your answers down accurately.
We use the [recording / transcript] only for this recruitment and
delete it [period] after the process ends. Our privacy notice has the
details, and you can ask for a copy. Are you happy to go ahead? You can
say no or ask me to pause at any time, and it won't affect your
application.

More wording options are in our interview recording consent script.

Checklist before you record interviews in Ireland

• Lawful basis chosen and documented under Article 6 GDPR.
• Invitation and privacy notice say the interview is recorded or transcribed, why, and for how long.
• Notice repeated at the start of the call, with a real option to continue without recording.
• Retention period written down and tied to the Workplace Relations Commission complaint window.
• Erasure refusals name the exemption relied on.
• Transcripts and summaries searchable by candidate for access requests within one month.
• No decision based solely on an AI score.

Interviewing elsewhere in the EU? Compare France, the Netherlands and Spain.