A Guide on Session Recording and Its Privacy Concerns

A company is entitled to use session recording or session replay as long as their marketing and analytics needs require. However, as enticing as the recording of everything the user does at all times can be, even within the existing regulations, there is a high chance that doing so will quickly push the data towards a non-compliant realm. And even in cases where regulations may not be explicit on the matter, we see more and more how the industry is leaning towards discouraging these practices. So, how do you make sure you get the data you need without having to worry about breaching data protection laws and not end up spending more time/money?

Spoiler: avoid Session Recording.

Session Recording vs. Screen Recording (vs. Data Privacy)

Let’s start by clarifying the concepts at hand here to make sure we are all on the same page.

• Session Recording is a bit more complex. It includes screen recording, but also everything that the user did during the session, such as clicks made, the time elapsed between every action, keys pressed in the keyboard, etc.
• Screen Recording is a feature that allows the recording of what is being shown on the screen of a device. Simply put, somebody else will be able to see what you see on your screen.

In both cases, the recording can be played and replayed at will by whoever owns and/or shares the recording.

To add a practical layer of understanding, session recording often serves as a powerful tool for businesses looking to improve user experience, debug issues, or optimize conversion rates. By capturing every interaction, organisations can identify pain points, behavioural patterns, or bugs that might otherwise go unnoticed through traditional analytics alone. It’s best to keep in mind, though, that this kind of comprehensive data capture also comes with significant challenges, particularly around data security and privacy compliance.

For example, if you have a banking app and your provider has enabled session recording, the bank will theoretically be able to see everything you did in the app from the moment you opened it until you closed it, including if it was left open in the background. This means that all your interactions with the app are visible, ranging from obvious actions, like making a transaction or reviewing your statements, to perhaps more high-risk actions, such as:

• Entering your personal tax information
• Typing your password when logging in

Those “high-risk actions” bring us the case built around data privacy and the protection of Personal Identifiable Information (PII). Regulations like GDPR have provisions guiding and limiting the access to and usage of data from end-users, and how such users must be aware of why and for what their data is used. Now, what happens when passwords or PII are visible on session recordings and available to everyone with access to them to replay them? Would that not be putting data at risk in case it falls into the wrong hands?

Companies that operate across multiple jurisdictions where privacy laws are not created equal would do well to be wary. Beyond GDPR, regulations like CCPA in California, HIPAA in healthcare contexts, or PSD2 in financial services place strict rules on how session data should be handled, anonymised, or even restricted from capture altogether. Failing to comply could lead to heavy fines and reputational damage.

As such, businesses must strike a careful balance between leveraging session recording for optimization and keeping strict data privacy safeguards in place. This includes implementing encryption, access controls, and data masking techniques like obscuring passwords or sensitive fields during recording, and protecting users while still gaining valuable insights. Transparency is key: customers should be informed about what is recorded, why it’s recorded, and how their data is protected.

For and Against Screen Recording

Aside from the subject of compliance with regulations regarding what is being recorded and tracked from any given user, return on investment factors in because businesses must generate profit. 

When evaluating the use of session or screen recording tools, companies must balance possibility with responsibility. The legal green light doesn’t always equate to user trust, especially in industries like finance, healthcare, or education, where sensitive data is routinely processed.

That’s why many product teams and compliance officers now work closely so that customer trust is prioritized as much as technical feasibility. This, of course, opens up the question of ethics, something that cannot be mishandled or treated flippantly.

Ethic

Ethics can have a level of subjectivity to it, obviously, but they have a reflection in the moves being made by the industry and its own level of self-regulation. And lately, we have seen major and bold moves from the industry to move towards a privacy-conscious approach to user data, including Apple’s iOS 14.5 privacy changes and Facebook’s decision to ditch Facebook Analytics. We have yet to see an actual change specifically banning session recording, but maybe we do not have to if it does not add up from a budget perspective.

These industry shifts are part of a broader movement toward user empowerment and consent-based data usage. Even without an outright ban, companies that continue to use invasive session recording without sufficient masking, disclosure, or opt-in options risk alienating customers and raising red flags with data protection authorities.

This becomes especially critical in enterprise software, where end-users may not be the same people making the purchasing decision, but trust remains a key part of retention and renewal.

A growing number of digital product teams are now asking deeper questions:

• Can we collect what we need without recording everything?
• Have we minimized the risk of capturing sensitive data by mistake?
• Have we clearly communicated what’s being recorded and why?

What are the benefits?

Session recording may seem beneficial for the investment of having a product analytics solution, because among other things:

• It tracks everything the user does, so you do not need to decide on individual actions.
• lets you see and replay what was happening on a screen when an error or crash occurred; and
• gives you individualized data, as you can track actions from each user.

What does this mean for teams building digital products or managing complex customer journeys?

• Developers and QA teams can identify root causes without relying solely on written bug reports.
• Designers can see where users hesitate, rage-click, or drop off, providing context that quantitative analytics alone may not.
• Product managers can make more informed roadmap decisions, grounded in real-world behaviour rather than assumptions.
  

However, with these benefits comes the responsibility that managing such detailed insight can become a liability if handled improperly, especially in the event of private data being leaked.

Let’s talk about costs

But at the same time,

• it can lead to an overwhelming inflow of data that cannot be processed on time;
• runs up data-point billing schemes;
• Lacks the exact context of what was happening with the user during the session, which may lead to wrong assumptions and bad decisions; and
• Poses the risk of your app getting called out by one of the Internet’s biggest publications for not taking the security of PII seriously enough.

Session recording has benefits, but it also has costs. And with data privacy growing and user awareness growing, what is the solution to getting the detail you can in a session recording, but keeping privacy in mind?

These are aspects businesses must weigh carefully. For example, large volumes of session recordings can quickly clog data pipelines, burden storage systems, and slow down retrieval times. This affects engineering teams as much as analysts, who rely on timely insights.

There’s also the financial angle. Many analytics providers charge based on data volume or the number of recorded sessions. When session recording is left running indiscriminately, capturing low-value interactions or idle background states, the cost-to-insight ratio becomes less favourable, most notably for startups with a lean budget.

And perhaps most importantly, a lack of context in raw recordings often leads to misinterpretation. A dropped session may appear to be a bug when, in fact, the user simply got distracted or lost connectivity. Without accompanying metadata - like network conditions, device limitations, or intent signals - teams may optimize for the wrong issue, wasting time or making changes that worsen the experience.

More Features = Even More Power

Aside from getting way more actionable insights, staying away from features like session recording also puts you in the safe zone when it comes to being compliant with data protection policies. Plus, if the industry’s key players seem to be already trying to have a more ethical approach to user data, basing your product analytics strategy on screen recordings may backfire and end up costing you more time and money to fix the damage.

In the long run, investing in more responsible and flexible analytics practices builds long-term user trust. A privacy-forward approach becomes a strategic differentiator when procurement teams and IT stakeholders start scrutinising how customer data is handled.

Leading organisations are starting to rethink what “powerful” actually means in analytics. It’s all about:

• Tracking what matters most to the business
• Avoiding noise that clutters decision-making
• Respecting user autonomy while still improving UX and retention

That means prioritising tools that offer modular capabilities, ones that allow teams to track user journeys, visualise funnels, build cohorts, and trigger real-time alerts, all without compromising on compliance.

Get that strategy going with a privacy-first product today by reaching out to us, booking your demo. Or you can see for yourself the wide variety of features you too can combine at will, and that is always privacy-focused, which is why you will not see session recording in Countly.