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Attorney cautions Harwich boards: AI transcripts and recordings can be public records
Summary
KP Law attorney Michelle Randello advised against relying on AI transcriptions for meeting minutes, saying recordings and generated transcripts are public records that must be preserved and may be subject to public-records requests.
At the Harwich training, Michelle Randello warned that audio, video, and AI-generated transcripts can create new public records and urged caution about relying on them as substitutes for minutes. She said recordings and machine transcriptions may have to be preserved and produced under public-records law unless properly redacted or withheld under a valid exemption.
"We do not recommend that you use AI transcriptions," Randello said, adding that recordings used to prepare minutes must be preserved until minutes are approved and that AI transcripts are often imperfect. She emphasized that meeting minutes — not raw transcripts — are the official record and cautioned that producing an AI transcript in response to a records request may require careful review for privacy or attorney-client protections. Town staff are considering a formal policy on AI use and whether to treat generated transcripts as preserved public records.
