Recording job interviews in Serbia: Criminal Code Articles 143 and 145, the personal data law and transfers to US tools

Recording a job interview you take part in falls outside Serbia's eavesdropping offense: Article 143 of the Criminal Code punishes recording a conversation "not intended for" the recorder, which targets eavesdroppers. But Article 145 punishes publishing or showing a recording of someone's voice of a personal nature without their consent, and the Law on Personal Data Protection, which follows the GDPR, requires a lawful basis, notice at the moment of collection and a stated retention period. Tell the candidate, ask, and share the recording only as agreed. This is the position as of November 2026.

This page adds Serbia to our country series alongside Croatia, Hungary and Romania. It is for recruiters, agency consultants and hiring managers who interview candidates located in Serbia by video or phone, including from the US and the EU, and for agencies placing Serbian candidates with clients abroad. Quotations from Serbian sources are our translations.

Serbia's rules at a glance

Is it legal to record a job interview in Serbia?

Yes, if you are on the call and the candidate knows. Article 41 of the Constitution says "the confidentiality of letters and other means of communication is inviolable," with exceptions only for a limited time on a court decision. Article 143 of the Criminal Code, headed "unauthorized eavesdropping and recording," reads: "Whoever, using special devices, without authorization eavesdrops on or records a conversation, statement or communication not intended for them shall be punished with a fine or imprisonment of three months to three years." Paragraph 2 applies the same penalty to anyone who lets an uninvited person learn the content. An interview is intended for the interviewer, so a participant's recording falls outside paragraph 1; a colleague or service listening in without the candidate's knowledge does not.

Two neighboring articles matter more to recruiters than Article 143:

• Video (Article 144). Whoever without authorization "makes a photographic, film, video or other recording of a person and thereby substantially intrudes into their personal life," or hands it over or shows it to a third person, faces a fine or up to one year. Ask before you record video, and say who will see it.
• Sharing (Article 145). Whoever "publishes or shows" a phonogram "of a personal nature" without the consent of the person "whose voice is recorded on the phonogram," and thereby substantially intrudes into that person's personal life, faces a fine or up to two years. An agency that plays a candidate's recording to a client, or a hiring manager who forwards it around, should have the candidate's agreement to that sharing.

Article 146 adds an offense for unauthorized collection of personal data. None of these offenses has been interpreted for interviews in any guidance we found, so the safe course is consent to the recording and to each recipient.

What does the Law on Personal Data Protection require?

The Law on Personal Data Protection mirrors the GDPR, so the checklist will look familiar:

• A lawful basis (Article 12). Consent, a contract or steps at the candidate's request before one, a legal obligation, vital interests, public interest, or legitimate interests.
• Notice at the moment of collection (Article 23). Your identity and any representative, the purpose and legal basis, any legitimate interest relied on, recipients, any intended transfer abroad and whether the destination is on the Government's adequacy list, the retention period, the candidate's rights, the right to complain to the Commissioner, and any automated decision-making.
• Consent rules (Article 15). If you rely on consent, you must be able to show it, tell the candidate before they agree that they can withdraw it, make withdrawal as easy as giving it, and consider whether consent was really free.
• Criminal records (Article 19). Data on criminal convictions may be processed only under the supervision of the competent authority or where a law allows it with specific safeguards. Do not ask about convictions unless a law requires the check for the role.
• Employment (Article 91). Processing "in the field of labor and employment" is governed by the labor laws and collective agreements, "with the application of the provisions of this law."

On the basis, the Commissioner's guidance on legitimate interest warns that it "should not be automatically taken as the legal basis" when no other basis fits: the controller must establish, before processing begins, that there is a legitimate interest, that the processing is necessary and that the interest outweighs the person's rights, and the assessment "should be documented." For interview recordings that means either a written legitimate interest assessment or consent given under Article 15, plus a note-taking alternative for candidates who say no. Breaches carry fines for legal-person controllers of 50,000 to 2,000,000 dinars under Article 95, including for failing to give the Article 23 information or being unable to show consent.

What does the Labor Law let you ask a candidate?

Article 26 of the Labor Law says the employer "may not require from the candidate data on family or marital status and family planning, or the submission of documents and other evidence that are not of direct importance for performing the work," may not make employment conditional on a pregnancy test except where the competent health authority has found a significant risk to the health of the woman and child, and may not require a signed advance resignation. Article 18 bans direct and indirect discrimination against "persons seeking employment" on grounds including sex, age, pregnancy, health, disability, nationality, religion, marital status, family obligations, sexual orientation, political or other belief, and trade union membership. Keep those topics out of the interview and, if a candidate raises them, out of your notes.

How long can you keep recordings and transcripts?

We found no Serbian rule that fixes a period for candidate recordings, so the storage-limitation principle in Article 5 of the data protection law governs, and Article 23 requires you to tell the candidate the period, or the criteria for it, when you collect the data. Decide it before the first interview: for example, audio deleted soon after the decision and notes kept for a set dispute window. Keeping a recording for future vacancies is a new purpose that needs its own basis and notice. Our retention policy template gives the structure.

Can candidates get the recording?

Yes. The candidate has a right of access to their data, and Article 21 requires the controller to act on a request "without delay, and at the latest within 30 days" of receiving it, with an extension possible in the cases the law allows. Article 42 of the Constitution separately gives everyone the right to be informed about personal data collected about them. Our candidate data access requests guide has a workflow.

What if you interview a candidate in Serbia from the US or the EU?

The Criminal Code protects the candidate's side of the call wherever you sit, and your own law governs yours; see two-party consent states. The data protection law applies to controllers established in Serbia and, under Article 3(4), to controllers outside Serbia processing data of people in Serbia when the processing relates to offering them goods or services or monitoring their behavior there; such a controller must name a representative in Serbia under Article 44, unless its processing is occasional and low-risk. Whether hiring falls within Article 3(4) is not settled in any guidance we found, so agencies with regular Serbian candidate flows should take advice.

Sending a recording out of Serbia needs a transfer basis. Article 64(2) treats as adequate the states that are parties to the Council of Europe's Convention 108, and the states, territories or sectors "for which the European Union has determined" adequate protection; the Government also publishes an adequacy list in the Official Gazette. Recordings sent to the EU are therefore covered. For a US vendor, we found no Commissioner statement on whether the EU's 2023 Data Privacy Framework decision counts under Article 64(2), so many controllers use the Commissioner's standard contractual clauses under Article 65, or the candidate's explicit consent "after being informed of the possible risks" under Article 69. Tell the candidate about the transfer in your Article 23 notice either way.

Can you use AI note takers or transcription?

Yes, with the same notice, basis and transfer steps, and with two further checks. Article 38 gives a person the right not to be subject to a decision "based solely on automated processing, including profiling" that has legal effects or significantly affects them, so keep a human decision on every candidate. Article 54 requires an impact assessment before processing that is likely to result in a high risk, "in particular using new technologies," which a tool that scores candidates may trigger. Ask the vendor where audio and transcripts are stored, how long they are kept and whether they train models on your interviews; see whether AI note takers train on interview recordings. Interview Signal, for example, captures audio on the interviewer's own computer with no bot joining the call, shows a read-aloud consent line with a one-click pause, and does not retain audio after transcription; the transcript is still personal data under the rules above.

A consent line for interviews in Serbia

Pre nego što počnemo: želeo/želela bih da [snimim naš razgovor /
koristim program koji razgovor pretvara u tekst] kako bih tačno
zabeležio/zabeležila vaše odgovore. [Snimak / Zapis] ćemo koristiti
samo u ovom postupku izbora, podeliti ga samo sa [klijentom /
rukovodiocem koji zapošljava] i obrisati [rok] nakon završetka
postupka. Da li se slažete? Možete da odbijete ili da me u bilo kom
trenutku zamolite da prekinem, bez ikakvih posledica po vašu prijavu.

(Before we start: I'd like to [record our conversation / use software
that turns the conversation into text] so I capture your answers
accurately. We'll use the [recording / notes] only in this selection
process, share them only with [the client / the hiring manager] and
delete them [period] after the process ends. Do you agree? You can say
no or ask me to stop at any time, with no consequences for your
application.)

The sharing line reflects Article 145. If the recording will be stored outside Serbia, add a sentence naming the country and the safeguard. Put the same information, with the Article 23 details, in the invitation and your candidate privacy notice. More wording is in the interview recording consent script.

Checklist before you record interviews in Serbia

• Only calls you take part in are recorded; candidate asked before recording or live transcription starts.
• Candidate's agreement covers each recipient, such as a client, in line with Article 145.
• Article 12 basis chosen and, for legitimate interest, assessed and documented before you start.
• Article 23 notice in the invitation, including retention and any transfer abroad.
• No questions on family, marital status, family planning or other Article 18 grounds; no conviction questions without a legal basis.
• Transfers covered by Article 64, the Commissioner's standard clauses or informed explicit consent.
• A human decision on every candidate; impact assessment considered for scoring tools.

Interviewing elsewhere in the region? Compare Croatia, Hungary and Bulgaria.