Is it legal to record a meeting in Liechtenstein?

StGB § 120, Missbrauch von Tonaufnahme- oder Abhörgeräten. Liechtenstein's penal code is modelled on Austria's and on this provision tracks it almost word for word. § 120(1) punishes with up to one year or a fine of up to 720 daily units whoever uses a sound-recording or eavesdropping device to obtain knowledge of a non-public statement of another nicht zu seiner Kenntnisnahme bestimmten, not intended for his own perception. § 120(2) punishes making such a recording accessible to a third party or publishing it without the speaker's consent. § 120(3) requires the injured party's Verlangen, demand, rather than Austria's Ermächtigung.

§ 119, Verletzung des Kommunikationsgeheimnisses, is the telecoms companion and turns on the same gate: a message transmitted over an electronic communications network and nicht für ihn bestimmten, not intended for him. Note the heading is Kommunikationsgeheimnisses rather than Austria's Telekommunikationsgeheimnisses, and the penalty is six months rather than two years.

The framing is the Austrian pattern rather than the German or Swiss one: the offence is about learning what was not meant for you, and about a device used for that purpose.

Yes, as far as the criminal code goes. The words are nicht zu seiner Kenntnisnahme bestimmt, so a participant, who is an intended addressee, falls outside § 120(1). § 119 is out too: it needs a device attached to a communications installation and a message not intended for him. No Liechtenstein case law was opened, so this is a textual reading.

As in Austria, the criminal line is disclosure. § 120(2) makes it an offence to make the recording accessible to a third party for whom it is not intended, or to publish it, without the speaker's consent. A local-only transcript that never leaves the device sits on the safe side of that line; an export that goes to a colleague may not.

But the Austrian civil doctrine has a textual foothold here too, and this is the most important open question for Liechtenstein. Austria's Supreme Court derives the Recht am eigenen Wort, and with it the holding that recording a private business conversation without the partner's consent is unlawful, from ABGB § 16. Liechtenstein's ABGB contains § 16 in the same words. Since the StGB provision is a copy of Austria's and ABGB § 16 is a copy of Austria's, there is a live possibility that a Liechtenstein court would follow the Austrian personality-right line and reach the same result.

That is a lead, not a holding. No Liechtenstein decision was found either way, and the court decision database was not queried. On that basis we recommend consent rather than presenting the country as permissive.

No statutory announcement duty was found. The criminal code contains none, and Liechtenstein has enacted no national specification of GDPR transparency that would add one. GDPR Arts. 13 and 14 apply through the EEA, so notice is a data protection obligation rather than a criminal defence.

Given the open ABGB § 16 question, use the long form and get an answer.

Kurz vorab: Ich zeichne dieses Gespräch auf, um daraus im Nachhinein meine Notizen zu schreiben. Die Aufzeichnung läuft ausschliesslich auf meinem Rechner, sie wird lokal in Text umgewandelt und nicht hochgeladen; die Tonaufnahme selbst wird nicht gespeichert, nur der Text. Ist das für alle in Ordnung? Wenn jemand nicht möchte, sagt es jetzt, dann schalte ich es aus.

On express versus implied consent, and on calendar-invite notice, no authority was found.

GDPR applies as well, and the analysis is the ordinary European one: a meeting recording is personal data about every identifiable speaker, a transcript without speaker labels is still personal data, the household exemption is read narrowly and a work meeting has a direct connection to a professional activity, you need a lawful basis, and Art. 13 wants the information at the time the data are obtained, which for an always-on recorder means before the substance of the meeting. The European framework covers all of that once rather than on every country page.

GDPR applies via the EEA Agreement, and the national act says so: the Datenschutzgesetz serves the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2016/679, and ties the applicable version to the published decisions of the EEA Joint Committee. Its Art. 2(1) carries the household exemption in the same words as the GDPR.

No general works council obligation for a small employer. The Mitwirkungsgesetz gives the workforce a right to representation only in establishments with at least 50 employees, or at least 20 for separately taxed units, and it requires a secret ballot within six months, with representation elected only if a majority of those voting are in favour. So below 50 there is no body to consult, and above 50 there may still not be one.

The employment-law personality duty is the substitute. ABGB § 1173a Art. 27(1): "Der Arbeitgeber hat im Arbeitsverhältnis die Persönlichkeit des Arbeitnehmers zu achten und zu schützen", the employer must respect and protect the employee's personality in the employment relationship. No provision restricting audio monitoring specifically was found.

The Datenschutzstelle has no guidance on audio recording specifically: its A to Z has six pages on video surveillance and none on sound recording. What is on point is its employee-data page: "Aus Datenschutzsicht äusserst heikel ist jegliche Form der Überwachung von Beschäftigten durch den Arbeitgeber … Sie kann nur in einzelnen Ausnahmefällen und bei nachweislich sehr gewichtigen Gründen als verhältnismässig und damit gerechtfertigt erscheinen … und nur dann handelt es sich nicht um eine umfassende und anlasslose Überwachung, die unzulässig ist."

Any form of employee monitoring is extremely delicate, can be proportionate only in individual exceptional cases and on demonstrably very weighty grounds, and only then is it not comprehensive suspicionless monitoring, which is impermissible. The same page confirms Liechtenstein enacted no standalone employee-data law under GDPR Art. 88.

Because the binding layer in Liechtenstein is data protection rather than criminal law, this is where the product's architecture does real work. Transcription runs on your own device, the audio is never written to disk, and nothing is sent anywhere. There is no cloud component, so on our reading we are not a processor under Art. 4(8), which processes personal data on behalf of a controller and presupposes receiving it. That means no Art. 28 data processing agreement to sign with us, no sub-processor list, no international transfer and no transfer impact assessment, because there is no transfer. We found no decision squarely holding that an on-device-only vendor is not a processor, so that is reasoning you can check rather than a settled point.

What it does not do is disclose anything. There is no bot in the participant list and no banner on anyone else's screen, so the transparency obligation rests entirely on you saying something. Earkeep does not make anyone compliant and could not: a tool cannot be compliant, only a processing operation can be lawful.

Where it helps in the room is that stopping is real and checkable. A pause from the live edge releases the microphone and the system audio stream, so your operating system's own recording indicator goes dark in front of the person who asked. A meeting on a connected calendar can be marked never-record. And a stretch of the day, or a saved meeting with its transcript, can be purged from the file on your own disk, with no server copy anywhere to reconcile against.

• StGB (LR 311.0), §§ 119 and 120, Lilex
• ABGB (LR 210.0), § 16 and § 1173a Art. 27
• Datenschutzgesetz (LR 235.1)
• Mitwirkungsgesetz (LR 822.11)
• Datenschutzstelle, Beschäftigtendatenschutz
• GDPR, EUR-Lex

• European recording laws: the four layers, the controller question, and all 32 countries.
• Telling people you're recording: the scripts, and the three ways to stop.
• Private by design: why the audio never leaves your computer.

This page is legal information, not legal advice. It summarises provisions and guidance rather than replacing them, and we are not lawyers. If the answer matters, ask someone who can be held to their answer.