Call and Meeting Recording Consent Rules by Jurisdiction

Recording consent rules decide whether a call or meeting may be recorded at all, and in several jurisdictions they also decide whether a recording may later be passed to someone else, such as an AI developer buying training data. US federal law needs one party's consent (18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d)), California, Florida and Washington need every party's consent, and Germany, Austria and Switzerland make recording or passing on non-public speech without consent a crime, all as of 2026-11-09.

The comparison below covers 18 jurisdictions, 12 of them with a rule verified against an official text or court order, for holders of call and meeting archives and for developers acquiring them. A recording that was lawful to make can still be unlawful to license, which is why this page treats recording consent as one part of AI training data licensing and sets the onward-use rules beside it. Two 2026 court records on training use are summarized, with their status as of November 9, 2026.

Every rule here is checked against the statute or court order and dated. The method is described in how we source, date and check every figure.

Whose Consent a Call or Meeting Recording Needs Before It Reaches an AI Buyer

A recording needs the consent of one participant under US federal law and in New York and Virginia, and the consent of every participant in California, Florida and Washington, while Germany, Austria and Switzerland punish recording or passing on non-public speech without consent. Under a one-party rule a participant may consent for everyone on the call, so a company that took part in its own calls can be the consenting party. Under an all-party rule every participant must agree, or the statute names a substitute: Connecticut, for example, accepts a recorded verbal notice at the start of a phone call or an automatic tone about every 15 seconds.

A licensing deal adds a second question, consent to reuse. The consent standard follows the law of the place and the communication, so as a planning consequence a multi-state archive meets the strictest rule among the places its speakers were in. That is a practical reading, not a holding on which state's law governs a given call. The same logic applies across borders, where a European speaker's call can bring a national criminal rule and the GDPR into an archive that was recorded mostly in the US.

Recording Consent Rules in 18 Jurisdictions

The table sets 18 jurisdictions side by side with the provision, the consent rule, what it says about passing a recording on, the penalty and the source, as of 2026-11-09. "Not stated" means no primary source was verified for this page, not that the jurisdiction has no rule.

One Party or Every Party: The US Federal Floor and the State Rules

US law sets a federal floor of one party's consent, and states either keep that floor or require every party's consent.

Federal Floor: One Party's Consent Under 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d)

Federal law makes it lawful for a party to a call, or anyone with one party's prior consent, to intercept it, unless the interception is for the purpose of a criminal or tortious act (18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d)). Plaintiffs in the Otter meeting-recording case plead AI training as that purpose, which is an allegation, not a ruling.

A second provision matters more for licensing. Under 2511(1)(c)-(d), intentionally disclosing or using contents while knowing they came from an unlawful interception is itself a violation, so selling such recordings creates liability, with a fine or up to 5 years in prison under 2511(4)(a). The statute is covered in depth in ECPA, the Wiretap Act and stored communications in data sales.

States in the Table That Require Every Party's Consent

California, Florida and Washington require every party's consent to record, Connecticut requires it for phone calls unless a recorded notice or warning tone is used, and Oregon requires that all participants in an in-person conversation be specifically informed.

California's Penal Code 632(a) protects confidential communications and has applied since 1967; the verified text comes through federal court orders that quote it, and California is never a one-party state. Florida makes a violation of Fla. Stat. 934.03 a third-degree felony (934.03(4)(a)), and as of 2026-11-09 section 934.10(1)(b) gives a civil claim for actual damages of at least USD 100 a day or USD 1,000, whichever is higher, plus punitive damages and fees. Washington's RCW 9.73.030(1) makes it unlawful to record private communications or conversations without the consent of all participants.

Connecticut's Conn. Gen. Stat. 52-570d(a) gives three routes for a phone recording: consent of all parties in writing or at the start, a verbal notification recorded at the start, or an automatic tone about every 15 seconds. Oregon's ORS 165.540(1)(c)-(e) bars obtaining an in-person conversation by device unless all participants are specifically informed, and also bars obtaining or using conversations that were unlawfully obtained; the telephone rule is not stated here. For the state's wider rules on sale, risk assessments and training-data disclosure, see California rules on CCPA, AB 2013 and CIPA.

States in the Table That Accept One Party's Consent

New York and Virginia follow the federal floor: New York defines unlawful mechanical overhearing as recording without the consent of at least one party (Penal Law 250.00(2)), and Virginia makes interception no offence where one party gave prior consent (Va. Code 19.2-62). One party's consent covers the recording itself, not any later use of it, and the onward-use section below compares the rules that attach liability afterwards.

States Without a Verified Recording Rule Here

Illinois, Maryland, Texas, Colorado and Utah have a page in this reference, but no recording statute for them has been verified against an official text yet, so their rows say "not stated". A rule that exists but is unchecked is not guessed at, and no row is filled from vendor lists, and the same applies to states without a page, including those that rival guides name.

Germany, Austria and Switzerland: Passing On a Recording Is Itself an Offence

Germany, Austria and Switzerland treat recording non-public speech without consent as a crime, and each also punishes giving such a recording to a third party, so none of the three is a one-party jurisdiction. In Germany, § 201 StGB carries up to 3 years in prison or a fine, up to 5 years for officials under § 201(3), and devices may be confiscated under § 201(5); making an unauthorized recording available to a third party is a separate offence. The German offence is treated in depth under recorded speech under StGB Section 201.

In Austria, § 120 StGB sets up to 1 year or 720 daily rates under subsections (1) and (2), and up to 3 months or 180 daily rates under (2a) for intercepted telecom messages. Switzerland's Art. 179ter StGB (SR 311.0) punishes a participant who records a non-public conversation without the others' consent and anyone who keeps, evaluates or makes it accessible to third parties, with up to 1 year or a fine, on complaint, in the version amended on 2023-07-01. Art. 179bis, up to 3 years, covers listening in on others' conversations. Both Swiss articles have been in force since 1969-05-01.

Recorded Calls in the EU: Confidentiality of Communications and a Legal Basis

In the EU a recording meets two layers: the ePrivacy Directive (2002/58/EC, Art. 5) protects the confidentiality of communications, so intercepting call content needs consent under national transpositions, and the GDPR treats every identifiable voice as personal data. The directive has been in force since 2002-07-31 and applies through national laws, which is why the German and Austrian criminal rules above sit beside it.

Under the GDPR (Regulation (EU) 2016/679, applying from 2018-05-25), disclosing a recording to an AI buyer needs an Art. 6 legal basis, and reuse for a new purpose needs an Art. 6(4) compatibility test. The detail stays on the page for GDPR legal basis, notices and transfers for AI training data.

Lawful Recording Versus Lawful Reuse for Training

Consent to record is not consent to license: six rules in this table attach liability to what happens to a recording after it is made, whether disclosure, use, keeping or making it available to a third party. A recording made unlawfully cannot be cured by a later sale, since the sale itself would be the second step of the same chain, and a lawful recording still needs a reuse route, such as consent that covers reuse, a GDPR legal basis, or de-identification where the law accepts it. The table gives the six rules as of 2026-11-09.

The table lists rules only where an onward-use element is recorded; for the other jurisdictions that element is not stated.

What Two 2026 Court Records Say About Training on Recorded Calls

Two consolidated cases in the Northern District of California test whether using recorded calls or meetings to train AI breaks recording law, and neither had a final ruling on the merits as of November 9, 2026. In the first, No. 3:23-cv-05437-RFL (filed 2023), callers allege that Google Cloud Contact Center AI recorded customer-service calls with Home Depot, Verizon, Uber and Discover and could use them to improve its models, which are allegations. The case record is in Google Cloud Contact Center AI privacy litigation.

Two orders of 2026-10-22 sorted the claims. The Verizon, Uber and Discover callers were compelled to arbitration (Dkt. 140), and the Home Depot callers' Penal Code 631(a) claims were dismissed with leave to amend by 2026-11-12 (Dkt. 141). The court found that accountholders consented through Home Depot's privacy statement, that training use is no 631(a)(3) claim without a predicate violation, and that intent was not pleaded. That is a pleading ruling, not a decision on the merits, and whether the callers amended is not recorded here.

In the second, No. 5:25-cv-06911-EKL (filed 2025-08), plaintiffs from California, Illinois and Washington allege that Otter.ai's notetaker recorded meetings without all-party consent and used conversations and voiceprints to train speech-recognition models. The claims include the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, CIPA 631 and 632, and BIPA, and all of them are allegations.

The Otter case is pending and its outcome is not stated here; the filings are summarized under Otter.AI privacy litigation.

What Buyers Ask of a Recording Archive

Mercor, a buyer that publishes requirements for recorded calls, asks for consent that covers reuse and rejects recordings made without consent. Its listings state this in its own words, checked 2026-11-09:

• The call-center listing requires "Recorded calls with consent that covers reuse", 1,000+ hours of recordings and each speaker on a separate channel.
• The same listing names "Recordings made without consent" as not a fit.
• The digital-health listing also names "Recordings made without consent" as not a fit.

Voice can also be a biometric identifier. BIPA 15(b) (740 ILCS 14/15(b)) requires written notice and a written release before collecting one, while Virginia (Va. Code 59.1-575) and Washington (RCW 19.375) exclude audio recordings from their biometric definitions. Payout terms are not covered here. What call archives sell for and to whom is covered under selling call recordings for AI training.

Licensing Recordings for AI Training: Benefits, Risks, Downsides and Alternatives, Including Not Licensing

A company can license recordings for training where its consent covers reuse, but every recording rule here adds conditions, and not licensing remains a valid outcome.

Benefits

• Recordings made with consent that covers reuse meet the requirement Mercor states in its call-center listing, checked 2026-11-09.
• In one-party jurisdictions the recording company can be the consenting party for the recording itself.
• De-identified transcripts can lower GDPR exposure.

Risks

• Disclosing an unlawfully made recording is itself an offence under 18 U.S.C. 2511(1)(c)-(d), § 201 StGB, § 120 StGB and Art. 179ter StGB.
• Florida adds a felony and civil damages of at least USD 100 a day under 934.10(1)(b), as of 2026-11-09.
• Class claims over training use were pending against Google and Otter.ai as of 2026-11-09.

Downsides

• Re-consent or notice campaigns cost time.
• A multi-state archive has to meet the strictest rule among its speakers' locations.

Alternatives

• License only recordings whose consent covers reuse.
• License de-identified transcripts instead of audio.
• Collect new recordings with reuse consent built in.
• Do not license at all.

The wider decision is set out in should you sell or license your data to AI companies.

Beyond Consent Rules: Jurisdiction Pages, Data Types and the Seller Process

Each jurisdiction, data type and seller step has its own page.

• AI training data law by jurisdiction: copyright, privacy, employee and contract rules beside recording.
• United States AI training data law: federal and state layers.
• EU rules for AI training data: the other EU instruments.
• Employee data and AI training rules: staff voices in internal recordings.
• Employee notice and consent when licensing internal communications: notifying staff before recordings leave.
• PII removal and de-identification before licensing: removing names and identifiers from transcripts.
• Mercor data buyer profile: the buyer whose listing terms are quoted.
• Microsoft Teams data export and licensing: exporting meeting recordings.
• Selling meeting recordings and transcripts: meeting archives.
• Contact centers licensing call and chat data: the contact-center seller.
• Zoom recordings export and consent: Zoom archives.
• Gong and call recorder data: sales-call recorders.
• Biometric data in AI training: voiceprints as biometric data.
• Voice and likeness rights in AI training data: rights in a voice beyond consent to record.

What This Page Does Not Cover

This page covers consent to record calls and meetings and to pass recordings to AI developers, not whether a recording is admissible as evidence or how an employer may monitor staff. Operating AI voice agents and consumer apps that pay callers are also outside it.

How This Page Is Sourced and Dated

Every rule cites the statute or court order, with the date it was checked. The rules for sources and dates are set out in how we source, date and check every figure. This page is general information about recording law, not legal advice for any specific recording or deal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Washington state a two-party consent recording state?

Yes, RCW 9.73.030(1) makes recording private communications or conversations without the consent of all participants unlawful. Washington therefore needs every participant's consent, not just one party's, as of 2026-11-09.

What states have a two-party consent law?

Of the states verified here, California, Florida and Washington require every party's consent, Connecticut for phone calls and Oregon for in-person conversations. Other states are not stated here, so no count is given.

Can you record a phone call without everyone's consent?

Under federal law yes, with one party's consent, and New York and Virginia follow that floor. California, Florida and Washington do not, and recording or passing on speech without consent is a crime in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Does "this call may be recorded" cover AI training?

Not by itself. In the Google order of 2026-10-22, the court found that Home Depot accountholders consented through its privacy statement and dismissed the callers' claims with leave to amend, which is not final. Mercor's call-center listing asks for consent that covers reuse.