Employers in Texas who are planning to hire new employees might be thinking about ways to revisit the interviews prior to making a hiring decision. In some cases, members of the hiring team might not be able to be present for all of the interviews, so you might be considering options for ensuring that everyone has the ability to assess candidates for a new position. One potential option some Texas employers might consider is video recording all of the interviews so that it is possible to review the interviews in the coming days before making a decision about an offer to a new employee.
However, if you are considering the possibility of video recording potential employee interviews, you may also be wondering if it is lawful to do so under Texas law, and if so, whether there are any specific legal issues that you will need to consider when you conduct a recorded interview.
Texas Law on Video Recording
Before you consider video recording interviews with potential employees, you should know about Texas wiretapping laws. While it might seem odd to think about wiretapping laws in the context of doing an audio recording or a video recording of an interview with a potential employee, wiretapping laws generally govern a person’s ability to make a recording with or without the other party’s knowledge.
Some states are known as two-party consent states, where both parties—both sides in a conversation or interview, for example — must consent to a recording for it to be lawful. Other states are known as one-party consent states in which only one party in the conversation must consent to the recording. Texas is a one-party consent state, which means that, under Texas law, you technically do not have to get the interviewee’s consent in order to record the interview lawfully. However, if you do want to record the interview, it is good ethical practice to let the interviewee know that you plan to video record the interview and to expressly ask for consent to do so or to obtain implied consent by informing the interviewee of the video recording in advance.
Zoom Interviews in Texas
Many employers are using Zoom and other virtual interfaces to conduct video interviews with potential employees. If your business is conducting interviews with potential employees over the internet and you plan to record the interview, you will need to think about issues of privacy, security, and data storage. These are also issues to consider for a video recorded in-person interview. To be clear, you will want to ensure that the potential employee’s privacy is not violated, and that information is not accessed by other parties over the internet. The other thing about which you must be aware is the location of the individual being interviewed. If that person is in a state other than Texas, you need to check that particular state’s laws regarding recordings.
In addition, you may need to consider accessibility issues of a video recorded interview, and the ways in which a video recorded interview could pose potential issues concerning unlawful discrimination against a potential employee.
Contact a Dallas Employment Law Attorney for Assistance
Conducting any kind of video recording in the workplace can be complicated, whether you want to have a video recording of in-person interviews, or you want to be able to use the video recording feature for virtual interviews over Zoom or another platform. You should speak with one of our experienced Dallas employment law attorneys to discuss the possibility of video recording interviews and the legal issues you will need to consider. Contact Simon Paschal PLLC for more information about employee privacy laws and your rights and obligations as an employer.
