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Alaska Recording Laws (2026): One-Party Consent Rules

Independently fact-checked against primary sources (last audited August 15, 2026). · Reviewed by the RecordingLaw editorial team. · Law checked current as of August 15, 2026. · 25 primary sources cited on this page. How we verify our legal content

Alaska Recording Laws (2026): One-Party Consent Rules

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Alaska a one-party or two-party consent state?

Alaska is a one-party consent state under AS 42.20.310. If you are a participant in a conversation, you may record it without telling the other parties, per Palmer v. State, 604 P.2d 1106, 1108 n.5 (Alaska 1979). A pending bill, SB 85, would convert Alaska to all-party consent, but as of June 2026 it is stalled in Senate Labor and Commerce Committee with no committee action since its February 5, 2025 introduction.

Can I record a phone call in Alaska?

Yes, if you are a party to the call. AS 42.20.310 and the federal one-party rule at 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d) both permit a participant to record. If any other party is in California, Washington, or Oregon, those states require all-party consent, so the safest practice is to announce the recording before substantive discussion begins on any cross-border call.

Is illegal recording a felony or misdemeanor in Alaska?

Recording a conversation as a non-participant is a Class A misdemeanor under AS 42.20.330, carrying up to one year in jail and up to a $25,000 fine. Alaska's hidden-camera statute, AS 11.61.123, already grades producing an image of an adult victim as a Class C felony (only unrecorded viewing of an adult is a Class A misdemeanor), and escalates a tier further, to a Class C felony (viewing) or Class B felony (production), when the victim is a minor. Federal Wiretap Act violations carry up to five years imprisonment.

What can I sue for if someone illegally recorded me in Alaska?

Alaska has no express state civil cause of action for illegal recording. Your two options are the federal ECPA civil action at 18 U.S.C. 2520, which provides the greater of actual damages or $10,000 in statutory damages plus punitive damages and attorney fees, and the Alaska common-law intrusion-upon-seclusion tort, which supports actual damages, emotional distress, and punitives. Both have a two-year limitations period.

Are Ring doorbells and nanny cams legal in Alaska?

Yes, for areas where people have no reasonable expectation of privacy, such as your front porch or driveway. Placing a camera in a bathroom, locker room, or anywhere a person reasonably expects not to be observed violates AS 11.61.123. Producing an image of an adult that way is a Class C felony (a Class B felony if the person shown is a minor); merely viewing without recording is a Class A misdemeanor for an adult victim. A nanny cam that also captures audio conversations without any participant present crosses into AS 42.20.310 territory.

Can I record my boss or an HR meeting in Alaska?

Yes, under AS 42.20.310 as a participant in the conversation, and under the federal one-party rule at 18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d). Review your employer's handbook first: a properly tailored no-recording policy can support discipline even where recording is technically lawful. NLRB Stericycle (2023) makes blanket no-recording rules presumptively unlawful, but a narrowly justified policy may survive.

Can I record police officers in Alaska?

Yes, openly in public. Fordyce v. City of Seattle, 55 F.3d 436 (9th Cir. 1995) and Askins v. DHS, 899 F.3d 1035, 1044 (9th Cir. 2018) clearly establish a First Amendment right to record officers performing official duties in public places. Note that under State v. Glass, 583 P.2d 872 (Alaska 1978), the same right does not run the other way: Alaska police need a warrant before electronically monitoring a private conversation, even with one party's consent.

Does Alaska have a deepfake law?

Not yet as of June 2026. HB 47, which as introduced would have criminalized distribution of AI-generated sexual depictions and forged digital likenesses, passed the Alaska House in February 2026 and now sits in Senate Judiciary. Its Senate committee substitute dropped the forged-digital-likeness provision in April 2026, so the bill as currently pending covers generated CSAM, enticement of a minor, and unlawful exploitation of a minor, not AI-clone impersonation. The federal TAKE IT DOWN Act (signed May 19, 2025) already provides federal criminal and platform-takedown protections for nonconsensual intimate imagery including AI-generated forgeries.

Updates

Corrected the Alaska hidden-camera affirmative defense (AS 11.61.123(d) has no same-sex monitoring element) and re-sourced the controlling "eavesdropping device" definition to AS 42.20.310(b) rather than the narrower article-wide definition in AS 42.20.390.

Corrected the AS 11.61.123 penalty description, which had understated producing a hidden-camera image of an adult as a misdemeanor when it is a Class C felony (only unrecorded viewing is a misdemeanor), and updated the HB 47 discussion to reflect the Senate committee's removal of the forged-digital-likeness provision.

Independently fact-checked against the cited primary sources; governing law re-checked for recent changes

Corrected a KeyTakeaways bullet that described the federal ECPA's $10,000 statutory-damages figure as a cap; 18 U.S.C. 2520 actually sets it as a floor (the greater of $100/day or $10,000), consistent with how the rest of the page already described it.

Governing law re-checked for recent changes

Reviewed and approved by an editor

Restructured into canonical template: added AEO lede, at-a-glance table, dedicated sections for in-person/phone/hidden-cameras/penalties/police/special-topics, in-depth index linking all 12 sub-pages, and expanded FAQ to 8 questions. Condensed special topics (SB 85, HB 47, body-worn cameras, workplace/NLRA, federal overlay) into tight subsections. Verified SB 85 still stalled in Senate Labor and Commerce as of June 2026. Confirmed HB 47 still pending in Senate Judiciary as of June 2026, not yet enacted; updated to reflect Senate CRA stripping of social-media and $1M AI-company provisions on April 9, 2026. Preserved all primary statute citations (AS 42.20.310, AS 42.20.330, AS 12.55.135, AS 12.55.035, AS 11.61.123, AS 11.61.120, AS 11.61.116), Palmer v. State, State v. Glass, Cleveland v. State, Fordyce, Askins, and federal overlays. Corrected fine cap from stale $1,000 to current $25,000 per AS 12.55.035(b)(5) preserved from prior audit. No statute or case-law corrections required: core one-party consent rule, Class A misdemeanor grade, and civil remedy framework all verified consistent with primary sources.

Refresh: Verified SB 85 status via akleg.gov on May 14, 2026 (introduced February 5, 2025; in Senate Labor and Commerce Committee with referral to Senate Judiciary; no committee action since the introduction; bill alive in the 34th Legislature). Added the Ninth Circuit record-the-police framing built on Fordyce v. City of Seattle, 55 F.3d 436 (9th Cir. 1995) and Askins v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 899 F.3d 1035, 1044 (9th Cir. 2018), decided August 14, 2018, with the operative pinpoint formulation preserved verbatim. Added the State v. Glass, 583 P.2d 872 (Alaska 1978) constitutional overlay and the Cleveland v. State (Alaska Ct. App. 2020) particularity standard reaffirming Glass; both cited via courts.alaska.gov and appellate-records.courts.alaska.gov to avoid the banlisted aggregator link the prior version used for Palmer. Reframed Alaska as a hybrid jurisdiction: one-party for private recording under Palmer, warrant-required for police informant recording under Glass. Surfaced HB 47 of the 34th Legislature (passed Alaska House 39-1 on February 27, 2026; in Senate Judiciary as of April 10, 2026) as the pending forged-digital-likeness and generated-sexual-depiction bill, with SB 2 and SB 33 also pending. Added the federal TAKE IT DOWN Act, Pub. L. 119-12 (signed May 19, 2025; covered-platform notice-and-takedown effective May 19, 2026) as the federal NCII and deepfake-NCII overlay. Added the DPS Operations and Procedures Manual Chapter 241 Mobile Audio and Video Recording (effective May 1, 2023) and Anchorage Ordinance AO 2024-69 amending Anchorage Municipal Code Chapter 3.102 (adopted July 31, 2024) as the body-worn camera framework, with explicit no-statewide-statute negative finding and rejection of any AS 18.65 or AS 12.62 body-cam framing. Anchored civilian access through the Alaska Public Records Act at AS 40.25.110 to .220 with the law-enforcement-records exception at AS 40.25.120(a)(6). Surfaced the Alaska Attorney General / Deputy Attorney General July 17, 2024 position on pre-charging release of officer-involved-shooting footage. Corrected the prior framing that listed AS 11.41.452 as the NCII statute: AS 11.41.452 is enticement of a minor, not NCII. The adult-victim NCII hook is AS 11.61.120(a)(6) and (a)(8) (harassment in the second degree, Class B misdemeanor); the minor-victim distribution hook is AS 11.61.116 (Class B misdemeanor person-to-person, Class A misdemeanor to Internet); the recording-side voyeurism hook is AS 11.61.123 (Class A misdemeanor adult, Class C or B felony minor). Updated the penalty math from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press stale $1,000 fine figure to the current $25,000 cap under AS 12.55.035(b)(5) plus the one-year imprisonment cap under AS 12.55.135(a). Made explicit that Alaska has NO express state civil cause of action under AS 42.20: AS 42.20.330 is the criminal penalty grading section, not a civil remedy. Private plaintiffs rely on the federal ECPA civil action at 18 U.S.C. 2520 (statutory floor of $10,000 or $100 per day, plus punitive damages and reasonable attorney fees, two-year SOL under section 2520(e)) and on the Alaska common-law intrusion-upon-seclusion tort with the Alaska Constitution Article I Section 22 privacy clause as constitutional reinforcement (two-year SOL under AS 09.10.070 with discovery rule). Added Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514 (2001) as the federal First Amendment overlay for downstream publication. Reframed NLRB GC 25-05 (February 14, 2025; Acting General Counsel William B. Cowen) as a housekeeping rescission of prior General Counsel memoranda for backlog management, NOT a Boeing reinstatement; Stericycle, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 113 (August 2, 2023) remains controlling Board law. Added NLRB GC 25-07 (June 26, 2025) as narrowly scoped to surreptitious recording of collective-bargaining sessions. Updated FCC Order 23-107 (FCC 24-24) to vacated by 11th Cir. Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd. v. FCC, No. 24-10277 (decided January 24, 2025; mandate April 30, 2025), with FCC subsequent removal of 47 C.F.R. 64.1200(f)(9). Removed reliance on 47 C.F.R. 64.501 (removed November 20, 2017 under Modernizing Common Carrier Rules). Preserved FCC Declaratory Ruling 24-17 (February 8, 2024) as active and in force for AI-generated voices in robocalls. Replaced the prior version's two aggregator URLs for Palmer and AS 11.61.123 plus one secondary-codifier URL for 18 U.S.C. 2511 with courts.alaska.gov, akleg.gov, and uscode.house.gov primary sources. Populated the previously empty Supabase secondary_keywords array with the 15-keyword cluster. Net add approximately 1,100 words from the State v. Glass overlay, the Ninth Circuit Fordyce / Askins framing, the HB 47 / TAKE IT DOWN Act block, the DPS Policy 241 / AO 2024-69 body-cam block, the explicit no-state-civil-cause negative finding, and the AS 11.41.452 / AS 11.61.120 / AS 11.61.116 / AS 11.61.123 mapping correction.

Refresh: Verified SB 85 status (introduced February 5, 2025; in Senate Labor and Commerce Committee; no action since introduction). Added State v. Glass, 583 P.2d 872 (Alaska 1978) constitutional overlay and Cleveland v. State (Alaska Ct. App. 2020) particularity standard. Added Ninth Circuit Fordyce and Askins record-the-police framing. Surfaced HB 47 (passed Alaska House 39-0 on February 27, 2026; in Senate Judiciary as of April 10, 2026). Added TAKE IT DOWN Act, Pub. L. 119-12. Added DPS OPM Chapter 241 (May 1, 2023) and Anchorage AO 2024-69 (July 31, 2024) body-cam framework. Corrected AS 11.41.452 mis-tagging as NCII statute; adult NCII hook is AS 11.61.120(a)(6),(8); minor-victim distribution hook is AS 11.61.116. Updated penalty fine cap from stale $1,000 to $25,000 per AS 12.55.035(b)(5). Confirmed Alaska has no express state civil cause under AS 42.20; primary civil routes are 18 U.S.C. 2520 and Alaska intrusion-upon-seclusion tort. Reframed NLRB GC 25-05 as housekeeping, not a Boeing reinstatement; Stericycle remains controlling. Added NLRB GC 25-07 as scoped only to collective-bargaining sessions. Removed stale 47 C.F.R. 64.501 (removed 2017) and vacated FCC one-to-one consent rule.

Added wearable recording device guidance covering AI voice recorders (Plaud) and smart glasses (Meta Ray-Bans) under Alaska one-party consent law.

Sources and References

  1. akleg.gov.gov
  2. akleg.gov.gov
  3. akleg.gov.gov
  4. akleg.gov.gov
  5. akleg.gov.gov
  6. akleg.gov.gov
  7. akleg.gov.gov
  8. akleg.gov.gov
  9. akleg.gov.gov
  10. akleg.gov.gov
  11. akleg.gov.gov
  12. ltgov.alaska.gov.gov
  13. courts.alaska.gov.gov
  14. appellate-records.courts.alaska.gov.gov
  15. akleg.gov.gov
  16. akleg.gov.gov
  17. akleg.gov.gov
  18. akleg.gov.gov
  19. dps.alaska.gov.gov
  20. muni.org
  21. courtlistener.com
  22. courtlistener.com
  23. supremecourt.gov.gov
  24. uscode.house.gov.gov
  25. congress.gov.gov
  26. nlrb.gov.gov
  27. docs.fcc.gov.gov
  28. law.alaska.gov.gov
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