Recording job interviews in Italy: the Penal Code, the Workers' Statute and the Privacy Code

Italy's criminal law on intercepting calls targets outsiders: Article 617 of the Penal Code punishes anyone who fraudulently learns of a telephone or telegraph communication "between other persons or in any case not addressed to him," so on its wording it does not describe a recruiter recording an interview they take part in. The tighter limits are in employment and data protection law: employers may not, for hiring purposes, inquire into a candidate's opinions or into facts not relevant to professional aptitude, agencies may process only data strictly related to aptitude, and the GDPR and Italy's Privacy Code require notice, a lawful basis and limited retention. This is the position as of October 2026.

This page adds Italy to our country series alongside Germany, the UK, Canada and Australia. What Italy adds is a long-standing ban on irrelevant hiring inquiries, union or Labour Inspectorate approval for remote-monitoring tools, and newer duties to tell workers about automated and AI systems used in hiring.

The Italian rules at a glance

Can a participant record a call in Italy?

On the wording of the Penal Code, yes. Article 617 punishes "whoever fraudulently learns of a communication or a conversation, by telephone or telegraph, between other persons or in any case not addressed to him," or interrupts or prevents it, with one year and six months to five years' imprisonment; revealing the content to the public carries the same penalty, and the basic offence is prosecuted on the victim's complaint (our translation). A recruiter on an interview call is a party to it, and what the candidate says is addressed to the recruiter, so the offence as written does not fit. It does fit a manager who quietly records an interview they are not part of, or a tool that captures a call without any participant's knowledge.

That does not make secret recording advisable. The data protection rules below require the candidate to be informed, and Italy's employment rules limit what an employer may collect about a candidate in the first place.

What may you collect and record about a candidate?

Two provisions, both kept in force by Article 113 of the Privacy Code, limit what a recording may lawfully capture and keep:

• Article 8 of the Workers' Statute (Law 300 of 1970) forbids the employer, "for the purposes of hiring" as well as during employment, from carrying out inquiries, including through third parties, into the worker's political, religious or trade union opinions, or into facts not relevant to assessing the worker's professional aptitude.
• Article 10 of Legislative Decree 276/2003 forbids employment agencies and other authorized intermediaries from carrying out any inquiry, processing or preselection based on personal beliefs, union or political affiliation, religion, sex, sexual orientation, marital or family status, pregnancy, age, disability, ethnic origin, health or disputes with former employers, "even with their consent," unless the characteristic affects how the work is performed or is an essential and decisive requirement for it, and from processing data not strictly related to the worker's professional aptitudes.

A recording or transcript captures whatever the candidate volunteers. Keep questions job-related, do not prompt for the subjects above, and consider removing irrelevant personal details from transcripts before they go into the file. For CVs a candidate sends unprompted, Article 111-bis of the Privacy Code says the Article 13 GDPR information is given at the first useful contact after the CV arrives, and that consent is not needed within the limits of Article 6(1)(b) GDPR.

Which GDPR rules apply to the recording?

The GDPR applies in full: a lawful basis under Article 6 (steps before a contract, legitimate interests or freely given consent), the Article 13 information before the interview, minimization, a retention period you can justify, and the candidate's rights of access and erasure, answered within one month. The GDPR sets no fixed retention period for interview recordings, so document your own, tie it to the purpose, and delete on schedule. Our candidate privacy notice template has the Article 13 fields.

Do unions or the Labour Inspectorate have a say?

Possibly, because of your interviewers rather than the candidate. Article 4 of the Workers' Statute says audiovisual equipment and other tools that also make remote monitoring of workers' activity possible may be used only for organizational and production needs, workplace safety or protection of company assets, and may be installed only after a collective agreement with the workplace union representatives or, failing agreement, authorization from the National Labour Inspectorate. Tools workers use to perform their work are excluded, and information collected can be used for employment purposes only if workers were properly told how the tools are used and monitored. Article 114 of the Privacy Code keeps Article 4 in force. Whether an interview recorder is a work tool or a monitoring tool depends on how you use it; if recordings could be used to evaluate interviewers, treat it as the latter and take advice.

What must you tell people about AI used in hiring?

Italy has two layers here. Article 1-bis of Legislative Decree 152/1997 requires the employer to inform the worker about the use of "fully automated" decision or monitoring systems that give indications relevant to hiring, management or termination of employment, task assignment, surveillance or performance evaluation. Before work starts, the employer must explain, among other things, the purposes, logic and functioning of the system, the main data categories and parameters, and its accuracy and potential discriminatory impacts; it must answer workers' requests in writing within 30 days, carry out a risk analysis and impact assessment, and share the information with union representatives. The text is addressed to workers, so how it applies to a candidate who is not hired is a question for counsel.

Article 11 of Law 132 of 2025, Italy's law on artificial intelligence, adds that AI at work must be safe, reliable and transparent, must not violate the confidentiality of personal data, and that employers must inform workers of AI use in the cases and ways set out in Article 1-bis. A transcription-only tool is unlikely to be a "fully automated" decision system; a tool that scores or ranks candidates may be. See also the EU AI Act for recruiting.

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

As a participant, Article 617 is unlikely to be your problem, but the US side of the call has its own rules, which depend on the state you are in; see is it legal to record a job interview. An employer or agency established in the EU is covered by the GDPR under Article 3(1); for a US company with no EU establishment, coverage depends on Article 3(2). If the job is in Italy, the Workers' Statute limits on hiring inquiries apply to the employer regardless of where the interviewer sits.

Can you use AI note takers or transcription?

Yes, with notice and within the inquiry limits above. Tell the candidate which tool is used and whether audio is kept, keep questions to professional aptitude, and avoid features that infer personal characteristics. Interview Signal, for example, joins no call as a bot, shows a read-aloud consent line with a one-click pause, and does not keep audio after transcription; the transcript is still personal data under the rules above.

A consent line for interviews in Italy

Prima di iniziare: vorrei [registrare / trascrivere con un software]
questo colloquio, così posso concentrarmi su di lei e annotare
correttamente le sue risposte. [La registrazione / La trascrizione]
sarà usata solo per questa selezione e cancellata [termine] dopo la
sua conclusione. È d'accordo? Può dire di no o chiedere una pausa in
qualsiasi momento, senza alcuna conseguenza sulla sua candidatura.

(Before we start: I'd like to [record / transcribe with software] this
interview so I can focus on you and capture your answers correctly. The
[recording / transcript] will be used only for this selection and deleted
[period] after it ends. Do you agree? You can say no or ask to pause at
any time, with no effect on your application.)

More wording options are in our interview recording consent script.

Checklist before you record interviews in Italy

• Only calls you take part in are recorded, and the candidate is told before recording starts.
• Questions limited to professional aptitude; no inquiries into opinions or irrelevant personal facts.
• Lawful basis and Article 13 information in place; retention period documented.
• Union agreement or Labour Inspectorate authorization considered if the tool can monitor interviewers.
• Workers informed under Article 1-bis if a fully automated system gives indications relevant to hiring.
• No decision based solely on an AI score.

Interviewing elsewhere in Europe? Compare Spain, France and Poland.