Maine

Maine Recording Laws (2026): One-Party Consent, § 710 and § 511

By Recording Law Editorial TeamPublished June 5, 202612 min read

Maine is a one-party consent state under 15 M.R.S. § 710. You may lawfully record any phone call or in-person conversation when you are a party to it, or when at least one participant has given prior consent. Illegal recording is a Class C crime and a civil wrong under 15 M.R.S. § 711. Maine has one important wrinkle: a parallel all-party rule under 17-A M.R.S. § 511 applies whenever recording occurs inside a "private place" such as a bathroom, locker room, or bedroom.

Maine recording law at a glance

Question	Answer
Consent rule	One-party consent (participant recording lawful)
Main statute	15 M.R.S. § 710, defined via § 709(5)
When recording is illegal	No party to the conversation consents; or recording inside a private place without all-party consent
Criminal penalty	Class C (up to 5 yrs / $5k); Class B for device sale (up to 10 yrs / $20k)
Civil penalty	$100/day liquidated damages or actual damages, plus attorney fees
Hidden cameras	Class D crime under 17-A M.R.S. § 511 in private places; lawful in public spaces
Recording police	Constitutionally protected (open or secret) under Glik and Project Veritas Action Fund

For detailed analysis of each scenario, see the in-depth guides below.

lapel microphone clipped to a charcoal blazer

Recording in-person conversations in Maine

Maine's one-party rule is rooted in how the wiretap chapter defines "oral communication." Under 15 M.R.S. § 709(5), an oral communication is one "uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation." A speaker talking to a participant has exhibited no justified expectation of non-interception against that participant. The participant's recording therefore does not "intercept" a protected communication, and § 710 is never triggered.

The practical result: if you are part of a conversation, you may record it without telling anyone else. Federal ECPA preemption under 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d) supplies the same result for wire communications and sets the federal floor that Maine cannot lower.

The critical second question is always the place. Public settings (sidewalks, restaurants, parks, government lobbies, workplace common areas) fall under the one-party rule. Private places fall under the separate all-party rule discussed in the hidden-cameras section below. Maine's one-party posture for public conversations is straightforward; its private-place overlay is what sets it apart from most one-party states.

Recording phone calls in Maine

Phone calls are "wire communications" under 15 M.R.S. § 709(7), and the same one-party analysis applies. You may record any call you participate in, covering landlines, cell calls, VoIP (Zoom, Teams, FaceTime), and conference calls where any participating party consents. Recording a call you are not on, where no party consents, is a Class C crime under § 710(1).

Interstate calls create a conflict-of-laws risk. Maine borders New Hampshire (all-party under RSA 570-A:2) and is close to Massachusetts (all-party under M.G.L. c. 272 § 99). Courts in stricter states have applied their own law to calls touching their territory. For any call to Massachusetts, New Hampshire, California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Montana, Pennsylvania, or Washington, the safe approach is to disclose the recording at the start of the call.

For more on Maine phone call rules, see Maine Phone Call Recording Laws.

law library reading room with brass lamp and books in soft focus

Hidden cameras, doorbells, and nanny cams

Video recording in public places is generally lawful in Maine with no additional consent requirement. Dashcams, public-street filming, and doorbell cameras pointed at the public sidewalk are all permitted. The one public-space exception is § 511(1)(D): capturing someone's body beneath their clothing in a public place ("upskirt" imaging) is a Class D crime.

Recording inside a "private place" is a different matter. 17-A M.R.S. § 511(1)(B) makes it a Class D crime to install or use any device for observing, photographing, or recording in a private place "without the consent of the person or persons entitled to privacy in that place." The statute defines a private place as "a place where one may reasonably expect to be safe from surveillance, including, but not limited to, changing or dressing rooms, bathrooms and similar places." The "including but not limited to" language means courts look to the reasonable-expectation question, not a closed list of rooms.

A nanny cam in a bathroom or guest bedroom, a landlord's hidden camera in a tenant's room, or a locker-room surveillance camera are all Class D crimes under § 511. A nanny cam in an open living room or kitchen is generally lawful. A camera capturing audio also layers the § 710 one-party question: if the audio captures bystanders who are not parties to any conversation, there is potential wiretap exposure too.

The "all-party" shorthand undersells the rule. Section 511(1)(B) requires the consent of every person "entitled to privacy" in the place, which can exceed the count of conversational participants. In a four-person locker room, all four privacy interests must consent.

For more, see Maine Security Camera Laws and Maine Voyeurism Laws.

wireless earbuds in their open charging case on a white desk

Penalties for illegal recording in Maine

Criminal penalties

Statute	Conduct	Class	Max prison	Max fine
15 M.R.S. § 710(1)	Intentional interception of wire or oral communication	C	5 years	$5,000
15 M.R.S. § 710(2)	Editing or tampering with a recording for use in proceedings	C	5 years	$5,000
15 M.R.S. § 710(3)	Disclosing or using unlawfully intercepted contents	C	5 years	$5,000
15 M.R.S. § 710(5)	Possessing an interception device outside authorized exceptions	C	5 years	$5,000
15 M.R.S. § 710(6)	Selling or transferring an interception device	B	10 years	$20,000
17-A M.R.S. § 511(1)(B)	Recording in a private place without all-party consent	D	364 days	$2,000
17-A M.R.S. § 511(1)(D)	Upskirt imaging in public	D	364 days	$2,000
17-A M.R.S. § 511-A	Nonconsensual intimate imagery (including AI deepfakes)	D	364 days	$2,000

Penalties are set by 17-A M.R.S. § 1604: Class C up to 5 years, Class B up to 10 years, Class D up to 364 days. The fine schedule is in § 1704.

Civil remedy

Under 15 M.R.S. § 711, any party whose communication was intercepted, disclosed, or used in violation of chapter 102 may sue for: actual damages, but not less than $100 per day of violation, plus reasonable attorney fees and litigation disbursements. There is no statutory punitive-damages provision, though Maine common-law punitive doctrine could apply where independent malice is shown. There is no $1,000 statutory floor; even a brief violation only accrues the per-day measure.

Recording the police in Maine

Maine sits in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which has produced the two strongest record-the-police decisions in the country.

In Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011), the court held that openly recording on-duty police officers in a public space is a clearly established First Amendment right, defeating qualified immunity for officers who retaliated against the recorder.

In Project Veritas Action Fund v. Rollins, 982 F.3d 813 (1st Cir. 2020), the First Circuit extended Glik to secret audio recording of government officials performing public duties. The surreptitiousness of the recording is constitutionally irrelevant in the public-officer, public-place context.

Together these cases mean Maine citizens may openly or secretly record on-duty police performing public duties, and chapter 102 may not be used to prosecute that recording. Officers may still order you to step back a reasonable distance, enforce neutral time/place/manner restrictions, or act on independent probable cause. They may not seize your device without a warrant, order deletion of recordings, or use obstruction charges pretextually to silence you.

For detailed guidance, see Maine Laws on Recording Police.

two professionals standing at a city sidewalk corner, one speaking into a smartphone held to the ear while the other holds a tablet

Special topics in Maine

Workplace recording and NLRB Stericycle

Maine has no employer-notice statute for one-party recording. A Maine worker or supervisor who participates in a conversation may record it. However, under Stericycle, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 113 (Aug. 2, 2023), a private-sector employer's blanket no-recording policy is presumptively unlawful unless narrowly tailored to a legitimate business interest with carve-outs for Section 7 protected activity. NLRB GC 25-05 (Feb. 14, 2025) reinstated Boeing-era prosecutorial discretion but did not overrule Stericycle. NLRB GC 25-07 (June 25, 2025) makes surreptitious recording of collective-bargaining sessions a per se Section 8 unfair labor practice, overriding Maine's one-party rule for that narrow context.

AI-generated imagery and the TAKE IT DOWN Act

Maine LD 1944 / PL 2025, c. 400, signed by Governor Janet Mills on June 20, 2025, amended 17-A M.R.S. § 511-A to expressly reach AI-generated and deepfake intimate imagery via the phrase "created or modified so that it appears to show." The federal TAKE IT DOWN Act (Pub. L. 119-12, signed May 19, 2025) adds a federal criminal prohibition and a 48-hour platform notice-and-takedown obligation (effective May 19, 2026). Maine victims now have both state and federal remedies. Maine has no parallel civil deepfake statute; § 511-A is criminal only.

AI chatbot disclosure

10 M.R.S. § 1500-DD (LD 1727, enacted 2025) requires any business using an AI chatbot to interact with a Maine consumer to clearly disclose that the consumer is talking to an AI, not a human. Violations are enforced through Maine's Unfair Trade Practices Act. This statute also interacts with recording law: AI voice agents on outbound calls must disclose their AI status under § 1500-DD while the underlying call remains subject to the one-party rule under § 710.

FCC AI voice robocalls (FCC 24-17)

FCC Declaratory Ruling 24-17 (Feb. 8, 2024) classifies AI-generated voices as "artificial or prerecorded" under the TCPA, requiring prior express written consent for marketing calls to Maine numbers. In force as of June 2026.

Body-worn cameras (25 M.R.S. § 3842)

Maine's statewide body-worn camera mandate under 25 M.R.S. ch. 411 (enacted SP 198 / LD 636, effective January 1, 2021) requires every Maine law-enforcement officer to be equipped with and actively recording a body camera during law-enforcement encounters. Footage is a public record under the Maine Freedom of Access Act, 1 M.R.S. § 402 et seq., subject to law-enforcement, personnel, and personal-privacy exemptions. FOAA requests must receive a response within five business days. A separate mandate at 25 M.R.S. § 2803-B(1)(K) governs recording of suspect and witness interviews in serious-crime investigations.

Public-meeting recording (FOAA)

Under the Maine Freedom of Access Act, meetings of public bodies (city councils, school boards, county commissions, planning boards, state agency boards) must generally be open, and recording is generally permitted. Public bodies may adopt reasonable procedural rules on positioning but cannot impose a blanket prohibition. Executive sessions under 1 M.R.S. § 405(6) are closed to the public; no recording right attaches inside them.

Federal overlay (ECPA, HIPAA, CALEA)

ECPA, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2522, sets the federal one-party floor and confirms Maine's parallel result for wire and oral communications. The HIPAA Privacy Rule, 45 C.F.R. Part 164, applies to covered entities recording in patient-care settings; a patient may record their own visit under § 710, but a provider recording the patient needs a HIPAA-compliant basis. CALEA, 47 U.S.C. §§ 1001-1010, imposes engineering obligations on Maine carriers to enable lawful court-ordered interception; it does not authorize warrantless recording.

Recent legal developments

June 20, 2025: Governor Janet Mills signed LD 1944 / PL 2025, c. 400, expanding 17-A M.R.S. § 511-A to cover AI-generated and deepfake intimate imagery.
June 25, 2025: NLRB GC 25-07 made surreptitious recording of NLRA collective-bargaining sessions a per se Section 8 unfair labor practice.
May 19, 2025: Federal TAKE IT DOWN Act (Pub. L. 119-12) signed; platform notice-and-takedown obligation effective May 19, 2026.
April 30, 2025: 11th Circuit mandate vacated the FCC One-to-One Consent Rule (FCC 23-107); FCC removed 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(f)(9). Do not cite the one-to-one consent rule as a current obligation.
February 14, 2025: NLRB GC 25-05 reinstated Boeing-era prosecutorial discretion; Stericycle remains binding Board law.
January 1, 2021: Maine body-worn camera mandate (25 M.R.S. § 3842) took effect.
December 10, 2020: First Circuit decided Project Veritas Action Fund v. Rollins, extending Glik to secret audio recording of police.

Maine recording laws in depth

By type of recording

By place or relationship

More Maine laws

This article is general legal information, not legal advice. Recording laws change and apply differently to each situation. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed Maine attorney.

More Maine Laws

Sources and References

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