Is It Illegal to Record a Conversation? A Global Guide to Recording Laws

Recording a conversation is legal in most of the world when you are taking part in it, and a crime almost everywhere when you are not. That second rule is the one every jurisdiction in this guide shares. The first one splits, because some places let a participant record on their own say-so while others require everyone present to agree, and that line is what decides whether a recording ends up as evidence or as an offense. The UK, the EU, Australia, Canada and the United States each draw it differently, and an AI assistant in the meeting inherits whichever rule applies to the person who invited it.

One-Party vs All-Party Consent Explained

Recording law almost everywhere turns on a single question, whether the person holding the recorder is taking part in the conversation. Two frameworks answer that question differently, and nearly every jurisdiction in this guide runs on one of them.

One-party consent means a participant in a conversation may lawfully record it with only their own agreement. No one else has to be told, and no one else has to approve. The recorder's status as a participant is what makes the recording lawful. The United States at federal level, Canada, the UK and three of Australia's eight jurisdictions all work this way.

All-party consent, also called two-party or multi-party consent, means every person taking part must agree before recording begins. Consent can be express or implied depending on the jurisdiction, but silence from someone who was never told is not consent. A single holdout makes the recording unlawful. California, Western Australia and South Australia all apply this standard.

So the difference between one-party and two-party consent comes down to how many people have to know. Under one-party consent, the recorder's own knowledge satisfies the law. Under two-party consent, nothing is lawful until everyone has agreed, and going ahead anyway can carry criminal penalties and civil liability at once.

Both frameworks agree on one thing. Recording a conversation you are not part of is an offense in every jurisdiction covered here, whatever the local consent rule says. Statutes treat that conduct as interception or eavesdropping, and stopping it is what most of these laws were written for.

There is a third distinction the consent framework alone does not capture, and it is the one businesses most often miss. Recording and sharing are governed separately in a great many jurisdictions. A recording that was lawful to make can still be unlawful to circulate, because the provision permitting participant recording and the provision restricting publication set different consent thresholds. Seven of Australia's eight states and territories draw that line, including Queensland, which is otherwise among the most permissive jurisdictions in the country. If a meeting gets transcribed and the summary goes to colleagues who were not in the room, the sharing rule is usually the tighter of the two.

Recording Laws by Country

Is It Legal to Record a Conversation in the UK?

Recording a conversation you are taking part in is legal in the UK, and no statute requires you to tell the other people that you are doing it. What the UK prohibits is interception, under section 3 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. Section 4 of the same Act defines interception as occurring only where content is made available to someone who is not the sender or intended recipient, so a participant recording their own conversation falls outside the offense by definition, with no exception needed.

Plenty of guides still credit this to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. They are out of date. RIPA's interception offense was repealed in stages and gone entirely by 26 September 2018.

For businesses the operative law is data protection, and interception law drops out. UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 apply as soon as a recording of an identifiable person is processed for anything beyond a purely personal or household activity, which covers effectively all workplace recording. That requires a lawful basis, and the ICO's guidance on monitoring workers is blunt about transparency, telling employers they must tell callers that a call is being recorded and why, and inform workers of call monitoring through their privacy information. Note that UK GDPR moved to seven lawful bases on February 5, 2026, when section 70 of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 added recognised legitimate interest as Article 6(1)(ea). Any policy still counting six describes the old position.

Is It Legal to Record a Conversation in the EU?

Whether recording a conversation is legal in the EU depends on which member state you are in, because GDPR does not set a consent rule for recording. National criminal and communications law does that, and it differs country to country. Article 5(1) of the ePrivacy Directive says as much on its face, directing member states to prohibit interception "by persons other than users" and to do it "through national legislation." A single European answer does not exist by design.

What GDPR governs is what happens to the recording afterward. A voice recording of an identifiable person is personal data under Article 4(1), so processing it requires one of the six lawful bases in Article 6. Consent is one option. Legitimate interest is another, and for routine business meetings it is often the more workable of the two, since GDPR consent has to be freely given and withdrawable, which is hard to guarantee between an employer and an employee.

Voice recordings are not automatically special category biometric data, despite how often they get described that way. Article 9 engages only where a recording is put through specific technical processing for the purpose of uniquely identifying someone, which is what a voiceprint does. Transcribing a meeting is not that.

Across member states, the defensible approach is to tell everyone before recording starts and to document which lawful basis applies and why. That covers the transparency duty regardless of which national consent rule sits underneath. Our guide to GDPR call recording best practices goes into the documentation side in more detail.

Can You Record a Conversation or Phone Call in Australia?

Australia has no national recording law. Each state and territory legislates for itself, and the result is three distinct positions, which is more than the usual one-party and all-party split most guides describe.

Queensland, the Northern Territory and Victoria are one-party at the point of recording, though as set out below, all three restrict what you may then do with the recording. Each statute prohibits recording a private conversation you are not part of and leaves participant recording outside the offense. Queensland does it through an express exception in section 43 of the Invasion of Privacy Act 1971. Victoria does it through the drafting of the offense itself, which reaches only a conversation "to which the person is not a party." The Northern Territory takes the same approach in section 11 of its Surveillance Devices Act 2007.

New South Wales, Tasmania and the ACT sit in between, and this is where the common summaries go wrong. All three prohibit participant recording as a starting point, then excuse it in two situations. One is where the recording is reasonably necessary to protect the lawful interests of the person making it, a test the ACT frames from the recorder's own reasonable view. The other is where the recording is not made for the purpose of communicating or publishing the conversation to people who were not part of it. A meeting recording that gets transcribed and shared with colleagues who were not in the room fits neither exception comfortably, which makes these three the hardest jurisdictions for anyone running a recording tool at work.

Western Australia and South Australia require all-party consent. Section 5 of the Surveillance Devices Act 1998 (WA) and section 4 of the Surveillance Devices Act 2016 (SA) each prohibit a participant from recording a private conversation unless every principal party agrees, subject only to narrow exceptions such as protecting lawful interests.

Recording lawfully and sharing lawfully are separate questions almost everywhere in Australia. Seven of the eight jurisdictions restrict a participant from passing on a recording to people who were not part of the conversation, though South Australia's restriction reaches only recordings made under its lawful interests and public interest exceptions, and Victoria's provision is representative of the group. Section 11 of its Surveillance Devices Act 1999 makes it an offense to communicate or publish a record or report of a private conversation obtained through a listening device without the express or implied consent of every party, unless doing so is no more than reasonably necessary in the public interest or to protect the publisher's lawful interests. Note that the provision reaches a report as well as a record, so a written summary is caught alongside the audio. Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory all have equivalents, and Tasmania and the ACT are the strictest of them, with no public interest exception at all.

New South Wales is the exception. Its publication offense reaches only material obtained in contravention of that part of the Act, so a lawfully made participant recording carries no separate sharing restriction. That is less generous than it first appears. Where a recording was lawful only because it was not made for the purpose of sharing it with non-parties, sharing it afterward undercuts the basis on which it was lawful to begin with.

For any organization operating in more than one state, all-party consent is the only standard that holds everywhere. The Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988 sit on top of the state rules wherever recordings contain personal information handled by a covered organization.

Is It Legal to Record a Conversation in Canada?

Recording a conversation you are part of is legal across Canada under federal law. Section 184 of the Criminal Code makes it an offense to knowingly intercept a private communication, but section 184(2)(a) exempts anyone with the consent of the originator or the intended recipient, and section 183.1 confirms that where a communication involves more than one person, the consent of any one of them is sufficient. A participant consents on their own behalf, which is what makes Canada a one-party consent country.

Two things narrow that for businesses. PIPEDA governs personal information collected, used or disclosed in the course of commercial activity, and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner is explicit that an organization recording customer calls has to say it is recording, explain why, and obtain consent. The criminal exemption does not carry over to the privacy statute. PIPEDA also remains the operative federal law, despite frequent reporting to the contrary. Bill C-27 and the Consumer Privacy Protection Act it contained died when Parliament was prorogued in January 2025 and were never enacted.

Quebec applies a stricter standard than the rest of the country. Article 36 of the Civil Code of Québec treats intentionally intercepting or using someone's private communications as an invasion of privacy, and the province's private sector privacy statute, as amended by Law 25, requires consent that is clear, free and informed, requested separately for each purpose, with express consent for sensitive information. Quebec organizations are carved out of PIPEDA for activity within the province, so the provincial regime is the one that governs.

Is It Legal to Record a Conversation in the United States?

Federal law in the United States permits one-party consent recording. Under 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d), a person not acting under color of law may record a communication they are a party to, or where one party has given prior consent, unless the recording is made for the purpose of committing a crime or a tort. That last clause is the one people miss. Federal law protects the act of recording. What you then do with the recording is governed separately.

States can be stricter, and the familiar count of 38 one-party states plus Washington DC against 12 all-party states deserves caution. Only seven states apply an unambiguous all-party consent rule to a participant recording. They are California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington. Several others sit in neither column. Massachusetts frames its offense around whether the recording was 'secret,' with consent doing no work, so an open recording with notice falls outside the statute, as the Supreme Judicial Court confirmed in Curtatone v. Barstool Sports in 2021. Connecticut's criminal provisions reach only outsiders, with a separate civil claim covering phone calls. Vermont has no statute criminalizing private party recording of a conversation. Its only interception law restricts law enforcement. 

Oregon deserves particular attention from anyone recording meetings. Under ORS 165.540(1)(c) every participant in a conversation must be specifically informed that it is being recorded, a duty of notice, which is lower than consent, and the statutory definition of "conversation" in ORS 165.535(1) expressly includes communication occurring through a video conferencing program. A recorded Zoom or Teams call in Oregon is governed by that rule.

California is the state most often at issue. Penal Code section 632 makes it a crime to record a confidential communication without the consent of all parties, and section 632(d) makes an illegally obtained recording inadmissible as evidence. Florida and Illinois apply all-party rules of their own, both narrower than the label implies. Florida's rule covers phone calls unconditionally but reaches in-person conversations only where the speaker had a justified expectation of privacy. Illinois rebuilt its statute in 2014 after the state Supreme Court struck down the previous version, and what replaced it applies only to recordings made surreptitiously of conversations the parties reasonably expected to be private.

Which state's law governs a call that crosses state lines gets decided case by case, not by any general rule, despite how often one is asserted. The instructive decision is Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney, where in 2006 the California Supreme Court applied California's all-party requirement to calls recorded by a brokerage's Atlanta office because the clients were in California. Planning around the stricter of the two states is the practical response.

For every state individually, see Fireflies' full US state-by-state breakdown.

What Recording Laws Mean When an AI Assistant Joins Your Meeting

An AI assistant in a meeting does not create a new legal category. The analysis is the one that applies to a person pressing record on their phone, because someone in the meeting is a participant and the recording is made on their behalf. In one-party jurisdictions that makes it lawful. In all-party jurisdictions it does not, and the technology changes nothing about that.

Three questions from the sections above decide most of it.

The first is whether everyone has to agree. Western Australia, South Australia, California and Florida say yes. Massachusetts asks something slightly different, whether the recording was secret, so an announced recording satisfies the statute even without affirmative agreement from every person present. Oregon asks a third question again, whether every participant was specifically informed, and because its statutory definition of "conversation" expressly covers video conferencing, a recorded Zoom or Teams call in Oregon falls under that notice duty.

The second is what happens to the recording afterward, and this is where meeting tools diverge most from a phone in someone's pocket. Seven of Australia's eight jurisdictions restrict passing a lawfully made recording to people who were not in the conversation. Victoria's provision reaches a "record or report," which on its face covers a written summary and not only the audio. A meeting recap circulated to colleagues who were not on the call is precisely the scenario those provisions describe.

Third, data protection runs in parallel to all of it. UK GDPR, EU GDPR, PIPEDA, Quebec's private sector law and the Australian Privacy Principles each require a lawful basis and transparency about processing, whether or not the recording itself was lawful to make.

How Fireflies handles consent

Fireflies is used by more than 20 million people across a million organizations, which is why the consent controls below are built to hold up across every jurisdiction in this guide. Fireflies joins as a visible participant named Fireflies.ai Notetaker. Attendees see it in the participant list, and participants can remove it, subject to the platform's own permission rules.

Which consent model applies depends on the meeting platform rather than on Fireflies. On Zoom, the platform shows a recording consent prompt before Fireflies joins, and if anyone the request is declined, Fireflies does not join. Google Meet's SDK integration works differently. Recording starts once one participant from the host's domain approves, and stops the moment any participant declines. Where a platform shows no prompt, Fireflies joins, stays visible in the participant list, and can be removed by participants. That is why the notification settings below matter in any jurisdiction that requires agreement.

For the jurisdictions that need more than a visible participant, several controls sit behind the Compliance Notification settings. That name matters, because these are settings rather than defaults. Once an account or workspace owner enables them, participants receive an email an hour before the meeting telling them it will be recorded, with a link to decline that keeps Fireflies out, and a pinned message posts in the meeting chat when Fireflies joins. Anyone relying on those notifications to meet an all-party consent requirement should confirm they are switched on.

In Google Meet, recording can be paused during the meeting using the /ff pause chat command or by voice, resumed with /ff resume, and ended with /ff leave. Paused stretches produce no transcript and appear in the notes as a timestamped marker. Organizations on the Enterprise plan that cannot retain audio can switch to a transcript only or summary only recording format, and participants who want a recording deleted can ask the meeting host or Fireflies support.

None of this decides the legal question for you. In an all-party jurisdiction the person who organized the meeting is still the one who has to confirm that everyone agreed before the recording proceeds.

More detail on how Fireflies handles meeting consent, or on bot-free recording options if you would rather not have a visible participant in the room.

What to do regardless of jurisdiction

Saying at the top of the call that it is being recorded, and noting it in the invite beforehand, covers the notice requirement in every jurisdiction in this guide and the consent requirement in the ones that want agreement as well as notice. For sensitive meetings, keeping a record of who agreed is worth the small effort, because the question tends to surface long after the meeting. Where participants sit in different countries, applying the strictest applicable standard to everyone is simpler than working out which rule governs which attendee, and it is what Fireflies recommends.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it illegal to record a conversation without telling the other person?

Recording a conversation without telling the other person is legal in one-party consent jurisdictions and illegal in all-party ones, as long as you are taking part in it yourself. It is lawful without notice under federal law in the United States, in Canada, in the UK, and in Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory. It requires everyone's agreement in California, Florida, Illinois, Western Australia and South Australia. New South Wales, Tasmania and the ACT sit between the two, letting a participant record without notice only where the recording protects that person's lawful interests or is not made in order to share it with people outside the conversation. Recording a conversation you are not part of is illegal in every jurisdiction covered here, whichever framework applies.

Is phone recording legal?

Phone recording is legal without the other person's consent in most jurisdictions, provided you are one of the people on the call, and illegal in the minority that require everyone on the line to agree first, including California, Florida and Illinois. Federal law in the United States, Canadian federal law and UK law all permit a participant to record a call without telling the other side. Because the stricter state's law can govern a call that crosses state lines, assuming the tighter rule applies is the safer approach on interstate calls. Connecticut adds a wrinkle specific to phone calls, giving the recorded person a right to sue over a call recorded without either all-party consent, a recorded verbal notification, or a repeating tone warning. Recording a call you are not part of is a criminal offense in every jurisdiction covered here.

Is it legal to record a Zoom, Teams, or Google Meet meeting?

Recording a Zoom, Teams or Google Meet meeting follows the same consent rules as recording any other conversation, so a participant may record it in one-party jurisdictions and needs everyone's agreement in all-party jurisdictions. The platform makes no legal difference. One jurisdiction does address video calls directly. Oregon's statute defines a "conversation" to include communication occurring through a video conferencing program and requires that all participants be specifically informed that a recording is being made, which is a duty of notice rather than of consent. Most platforms display an indicator when recording starts, which helps establish that participants were on notice, though whether that discharges a particular jurisdiction's requirement is a question for a lawyer in that jurisdiction.

What happens if you illegally record a conversation?

Illegally recording a conversation can lead to criminal prosecution, a civil claim from the person recorded, and exclusion of the recording as evidence, with the mix depending on the jurisdiction. The criminal penalties are real. Unlawful recording carries up to five years' imprisonment under Canada's Criminal Code, up to five years in New South Wales, up to three years and a fine of $15,000 for an individual in South Australia, up to two years under the UK's Investigatory Powers Act, and a fine of up to $2,500 per violation in California. Florida treats it as a third-degree felony. Connecticut goes further in one respect, giving the recorded person a civil claim over a phone recording even where no prosecution follows.

Can I use a recorded conversation as evidence?

Whether you can use a recorded conversation as evidence turns mainly on whether the recording was lawful where it was made. A lawfully made participant recording is usually admissible subject to the ordinary rules of evidence, and an unlawfully made one often is not. California is explicit about this. Section 632(d) of its Penal Code bars evidence obtained by recording a confidential communication in violation of the section from any judicial, administrative or legislative proceeding, except in a prosecution for the recording itself. Several Australian jurisdictions run an exception in the opposite direction, permitting a recording that would otherwise be unlawful where it was reasonably necessary to protect the recorder's lawful interests, which is how recordings of threats or harassment tend to reach a courtroom there. Admissibility is decided by the court, so this is worth putting to a lawyer before relying on a recording.

Does GDPR affect recording of conversations?

GDPR does not require consent to record a meeting, and it does not set the consent rule for recording at all. That rule comes from each member state's own law, which is why the answer differs across the EU. What GDPR requires is a lawful basis for processing the recording, since a voice recording of an identifiable person is personal data. Consent is one of the six lawful bases in Article 6. Legitimate interest is another, and for routine business meetings it is often the more workable of the two, because GDPR consent has to be freely given and withdrawable, which is hard to establish between an employer and an employee. The defensible approach is to tell everyone before recording starts and to document which basis applies and why. Note that the UK diverged on February 5, 2026, when the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 added recognised legitimate interest as a seventh basis.

Does Fireflies comply with recording consent laws?

Whether recording with Fireflies complies with consent laws depends on the jurisdiction and on how the account is configured, because compliance is a property of how a tool is used, and no tool carries it on its own. Fireflies joins meetings as a visible participant and can be removed by any attendee with permission to remove participants. On platforms that present a recording permission prompt, including Zoom and the Google Meet SDK, Fireflies cannot join if a participant declines. Workspace owners can also enable notifications that email participants an hour before the meeting with an option to decline, and that post a message in the meeting chat when Fireflies joins. In an all-party consent jurisdiction, the person who organizes the meeting remains responsible for confirming that everyone has agreed before recording proceeds.