Use of AI Note Takers
Beginning in 2024, the Chicago Continuum of Care began seeing the presence of AI note takers in
community meetings. Pursuant to the HMIS Lead and HMIS Committee’s roles in upholding the
CoC’s privacy policy and confidentiality document, this policy was drafted by the HMIS Lead and
approved by the HMIS Committee. Given that AI is emerging technology being leveraged to support
the homeless response system, this policy will be updated over time to incorporate additional
context around appropriate uses of generative AI as it relates to the impacts of its use across the
CoC.
AI note takers include products such as Otter, Fireflies, Microsoft Copilot, and Read, among many
others. AI note takers can be a valuable tool for documenting conversations and may be an asset in
community meetings regarding policies and CoC decisions. However, AI note takers store the
information they collect, without the CoC’s ability to control where that information is stored, and
therefore pose a serious risk to the confidentiality of any client-level data. As such, AI note takers or
any other recording devices cannot be used in any meetings in which client-level data is discussed.
In virtual meetings, AI note takers join meetings in ways similar to people joining – they must be
admitted into a meeting, unless the AI note taker is directly embedded in the software being used to
host the virtual meeting. For any meetings that discuss client-level data, participants should not
attempt to bring AI note takers, any AI note takers that do request to be admitted should be denied
access or exited from the meeting as needed, and any AI note takers embedded into the software
being used to host the virtual meeting should not be leveraged.
Should further clarification or corrective action be needed, these concerns will be raised with the
HMIS Committee for next steps.