Tennessee Recording Laws: Tenn. Code 39-13-601 + ELVIS Act

Quick Answer

Tennessee is a one-party consent state. Under Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-601, you may record any wire, oral, or electronic communication you are a party to, or that one party has consented to, without telling anyone else. Recording a conversation you are not part of, without consent from any participant, is a Class D felony carrying 2 to 12 years in prison and a maximum fine of $5,000. Victims may also bring a civil action under Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-603 with a $10,000 statutory minimum.

Tennessee added two AI-specific layers in 2024 and 2025. The ELVIS Act (Tenn. Code Ann. section 47-25-1101 et seq., Public Chapter 588 of 2024) protects your voice against unauthorized AI imitation. The Preventing Deepfake Images Act (Public Chapter 466 of 2025, Title 39 Chapter 17) criminalizes nonconsensual intimate digital depictions.

Key Point	Answer
Consent type	One-party
Can you record your own calls?	Yes
Must you inform others?	No
Primary statute	Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-601
Criminal penalty	Class D felony (2 to 12 years, up to $5,000 fine)
Civil damages	Greater of actual + profits, $100/day, or $10,000 minimum
Statute of limitations (civil)	2 years from reasonable opportunity to discover
AI voice protection	ELVIS Act, Tenn. Code Ann. section 47-25-1101 et seq.
Deepfake imagery	Public Chapter 466 of 2025, Title 39 Chapter 17

Tenn. Code Ann. Section 39-13-601: The Wiretap Statute Explained

Tennessee's wiretapping and electronic surveillance regime is housed in Title 39, Chapter 13, Part 6 of the Tennessee Code Annotated, titled "Invasion of Privacy." The core operative provisions are section 39-13-601 (prohibited acts and exceptions), section 39-13-602 (criminal penalty, Class D felony), section 39-13-603 (civil actions, damages, defenses), section 39-13-604 (cellular and cordless transmissions), section 39-13-605 (unlawful photographing in violation of privacy), and section 39-13-609 (Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act, governing law-enforcement use of drones).

Section 39-13-601 makes it unlawful to intentionally intercept, attempt to intercept, or procure the interception of any wire, oral, or electronic communication unless an exception applies. The one-party consent exception authorizes a participant in the communication, or anyone with the prior consent of one party, to lawfully record. Disclosure or use of communications known or reasonably suspected to have been illegally obtained is also independently unlawful.

The 2024 amendment (SB 2221, Public Chapter 1045 of 2024) revised business-vendor disclosure provisions and aligned the framework with the parental-monitoring exception, taking effect on a phased schedule beginning May 28, 2024 and with operative provisions in force July 1, 2024. The amendment did not change the underlying one-party rule.

What Communications Are Covered

The wiretap statute reaches three categories: wire communications (landlines, cell phones, and VoIP services such as Zoom, Teams, Google Meet), oral communications (in-person speech by a person with a justified expectation that the speech is not subject to interception), and electronic communications (texts, emails, video calls, and other digital transmissions). The "oral communication" definition has a built-in privacy filter: a speaker who is plainly audible to passersby in a public place generally lacks the reasonable expectation of privacy needed to bring a section 39-13-601 claim. Section 39-13-604 supplies a parallel Class D felony framework specifically for cellular and cordless transmissions.

The Criminal-or-Tortious-Purpose Carve-Out

Under federal ECPA, 18 U.S.C. section 2511(2)(d), a participant may not invoke one-party consent if the recording is made "for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act." The Sixth Circuit applied this carve-out in Boddie v. American Broadcasting Cos., 881 F.2d 267 (6th Cir. 1989), which is binding in Tennessee. A Tennessee participant who records a call to set up extortion, blackmail, defamation, or unlawful disclosure cannot rely on the one-party defense. Documenting harassment or preserving an oral agreement is generally lawful; recording in service of a criminal or tortious plan is not.

One-Party vs. Two-Party Consent Explained

In a one-party consent state like Tennessee, only one person in the conversation needs to know about and consent to the recording. That person can be you. There is no statutory requirement to announce the recording, play a beep tone, or obtain anyone else's permission. Two-party (or all-party) consent states like California require every person in the conversation to agree. ECPA sets the floor at one-party consent and does not preempt stricter state law, so the stricter rule controls when a multistate call reaches a two-party state.

Penalties: Class D Felony Plus Civil Damages Under Section 39-13-603

Tennessee imposes some of the strongest combined criminal and civil exposure in the country for unlawful interception. The same recording can produce both a felony charge and a civil judgment.

Criminal Penalties

Offense	Statute	Classification	Penalty
Wiretapping or illegal interception	Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-601	Class D felony	2 to 12 years, up to $5,000 fine
Disclosing illegally obtained communications	Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-601	Class D felony	2 to 12 years, up to $5,000 fine
Cellular or cordless phone interception	Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-604	Class D felony	2 to 12 years, up to $5,000 fine
Unlawful photographing (base)	Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-605	Class A misdemeanor	Up to 11 mo. 29 d., up to $2,500 fine
Unlawful photographing (distribution or minor)	Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-605	Class E felony	1 to 6 years, up to $3,000 fine

Class D sentencing under Tenn. Code Ann. section 40-35-112 places Range I (standard offender) at 2 to 4 years, Range II at 4 to 8 years, and Range III at 8 to 12 years, with the maximum fine fixed by section 40-35-111(b)(4) at $5,000.

Civil Liability

Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-603 supplies the civil remedy. An aggrieved person whose communication is intentionally intercepted, disclosed, or used in violation of section 39-13-601 may recover actual damages (including reputation, employment, and business harm) plus the violator's profits; statutory damages of $100/day or $10,000, whichever is greater; punitive damages for willful violations; reasonable attorney fees and costs; and injunctive and declaratory relief. The damages calculation takes the highest of actual + profits, $100/day, or $10,000.

The statute of limitations is 2 years running from the date the claimant first had a reasonable opportunity to discover the violation, not from the date of the recording itself. This discovery-rule trigger is favorable to plaintiffs because surreptitious recording is, by design, hidden until something exposes it.

Defenses to Liability

Section 39-13-603 provides a complete defense for good-faith reliance on a court warrant or order, a grand jury subpoena, or a statutory or legislative authorization. Reliance must be genuine and contemporaneous; after-the-fact rationalization does not establish good faith.

Recording Phone Calls in Tennessee (Including Interstate Calls)

Can You Record Phone Calls in Tennessee?

Yes. Under Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-601, any participant in a wire or electronic communication may record the call without informing the other party. This applies to landline calls, cell phone calls (also reached by section 39-13-604), VoIP and conferencing platforms (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet), and video calls with audio. Tennessee imposes no statutory beep-tone requirement, no oral-disclosure requirement, and no special equipment requirement on private parties.

Recording Calls Across State Lines

ECPA does not preempt stricter state statutes. When a Tennessee caller is on the phone with someone in a state that requires all-party consent, the safest course is to obtain consent from every party on the line before recording. States that typically require all-party consent for at least some classes of recording include California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon (in-person), Pennsylvania, and Washington.

The doctrinal question of which state's law controls a multistate call varies by court (some apply the recorder's location, some the speaker's, some both). The defensive answer is the same: when in doubt, treat the stricter state's law as controlling and disclose the recording before the conversation begins.

Business Call Recording in Tennessee

Tennessee businesses can record customer and employee calls under the one-party rule, with no state-law disclosure mandate. Many still provide notice (recorded announcement, verbal consent, written consent in service agreements, periodic beep tone) as a best practice and to handle cross-border calls.

Businesses that process the personal information of Tennessee consumers should also align with the Tennessee Information Protection Act (TIPA), effective July 1, 2025. TIPA addresses consumer data privacy, but a recording is "personal information" once it is reasonably linkable to an identifiable person, so retention, access, and deletion practices should be reviewed.

In-Person Conversations and the Participation Rule

When Is It Legal?

You can legally record in-person conversations in Tennessee when you are a participant, when you have consent from at least one party, or when the speaker has no reasonable expectation of privacy at the place and time of the conversation. The participation rule is the easiest path to lawful recording.

The Public Place Exception

Section 39-13-601 only protects "oral communications" that carry a reasonable expectation of privacy. Conversations spoken loudly in a crowded restaurant, on a public sidewalk, at a public meeting, or at a sporting event generally fall outside the statute because the speaker did not reasonably expect privacy. Recording such speech does not require participant consent, although other limits (anti-stalking law, common-law intrusion on seclusion, trespass rules) may still apply. The privacy expectation is judged from both the speaker's subjective belief and what an objective observer would consider reasonable, so lowering your voice or stepping into a private alcove can support a reasonable expectation of privacy even in nominally public spaces.

When Is It Illegal?

Recording becomes illegal when you are not a party and have no consent from any participant; when the speaker has a reasonable expectation of privacy (a private office, closed room, bathroom, or changing area); when you disclose or use a recording you knew was illegally obtained; or when you record with the purpose of committing a crime or tort, even as a participant (Boddie v. ABC, 881 F.2d 267 (6th Cir. 1989)).

Recording in Your Own Home

You can record conversations inside your own home if you are participating in them. You cannot leave a hidden device in a room and walk out expecting the participation rule to apply; you must be a party. You cannot record guests in areas where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and section 39-13-605 still applies if a camera is positioned to capture intimate areas with the requisite mental state.

Hidden Cameras and Video: Section 39-13-605

Tennessee's image-and-video privacy statute is narrower than its audio-recording statute. Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-605 makes it an offense to knowingly photograph an individual where the individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy, AND the photograph either (a) would offend or embarrass an ordinary person AND was taken for sexual arousal or gratification, OR (b) includes the unclothed intimate area or the individual engaged in sexual activity and the actor knew the photo would include such content. Both elements must be present; privacy expectation alone is not enough.

The base offense is a Class A misdemeanor (up to 11 months 29 days, fine up to $2,500). The offense is enhanced to a Class E felony (1 to 6 years, fine up to $3,000) if the victim is a minor or if the actor distributes the image, and conviction under specified subsections triggers sex-offender registration.

What Section 39-13-605 Does Not Cover

Section 39-13-605 does not apply to a Ring doorbell capturing porch visitors, a nanny cam in a common space, a dashcam on a public road, or a security camera in a parking lot or storefront. If the camera captures audio, section 39-13-601 still applies (the homeowner is a party). Common-law intrusion on seclusion can still reach hidden cameras pointed into private areas, and the FTC v. Ring LLC settlement (2023) governs vendor-side cloud review, AI training, and human access to customer video.

Section 39-13-609 Is a Drone Statute, Not an AI Statute

Some older guides label Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-609 as Tennessee's "AI photographing" statute. That is incorrect. Section 39-13-609 is the Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act and restricts use of drones by law enforcement to gather evidence. It treats drone-based surveillance as a "search" subject to the Fourth Amendment and the Tennessee Constitution, requires deletion of drone-collected data within 15 business days unless directly relevant to a lawful purpose, and creates a civil cause of action against the agency. It does not regulate AI image generation. Tennessee's actual AI deepfake regime sits in a different chapter, discussed below.

The ELVIS Act: Tennessee's First-in-Nation AI Voice Law

The Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act of 2024 (ELVIS Act), codified at Tenn. Code Ann. section 47-25-1101 et seq., was enacted as Public Chapter 588 of 2024 (HB 2091 / SB 2096), signed by Governor Bill Lee on March 21, 2024, and took effect on July 1, 2024. The ELVIS Act made Tennessee the first state in the nation to extend right-of-publicity protection to a person's voice against unauthorized AI imitation.

What the ELVIS Act Does

The Act renamed the Personal Rights Protection Act of 1984 and added "voice" as a protected personal property right alongside name, photograph, and likeness. Its key features:

• Voice defined broadly. "Voice" includes simulated or AI-generated voices that are readily identifiable as a particular individual. An AI soundalike that listeners can identify as the individual is reached, not just recordings of the actual voice.
• Tool-and-service liability. The Act creates liability for any person who makes available an algorithm, software, tool, technology, service, or device whose primary purpose is the unauthorized production of a particular identifiable individual's photograph, voice, or likeness. Distributing the cloning tool itself is independently actionable.
• Civil remedies. Injunctive relief, actual damages, punitive damages, and reasonable attorney fees.
• First Amendment safe harbors for news, public affairs, sports broadcasts, certain audiovisual works, and fair comment. Fictional uses falsely presented as authentic are not protected.

Why the ELVIS Act Matters for Recording

The ELVIS Act and the section 39-13-601 wiretap statute operate on different layers. A Tennessee participant may lawfully record a one-party call, but if that recording is then used to train or generate an AI voice clone of an identifiable Tennessean without authorization, it can become an ELVIS Act violation. The lawfulness of capture does not insulate downstream AI-imitation use. Liability does not require the violator to be a Tennessee resident; voice-cloning services and AI platforms with Tennessee customers should treat the ELVIS Act as a compliance baseline.

The 2025 Preventing Deepfake Images Act (Public Chapter 466 of 2025)

Tennessee's second AI-targeted layer is the Preventing Deepfake Images Act, enacted as Public Chapter 466 of 2025 (HB 1299 / SB 1346), signed by Governor Lee on May 9, 2025, and effective July 1, 2025. The Act amends Tenn. Code Ann. Title 39 Chapter 17 (criminal offenses against public health, safety, and welfare) and Title 28 (limitations). It does not sit at section 39-13-609, despite some commentary that misplaces it.

Definitions, Civil Cause of Action, and Criminal Penalties

The Act defines a deepfake as videos, images, or audio files generated or manipulated by artificial intelligence to realistically portray something that did not actually occur, and an intimate digital depiction as a realistic digital image depicting nudity, sexual fluids, or sexually explicit conduct.

The civil cause of action allows a subject of an intimate digital depiction disclosed without consent (where the discloser knows or recklessly disregards the lack of consent) to sue for damages, injunctive relief, and the right to proceed under a pseudonym. Consent to creation does not equal consent to disclosure; the Act requires a signed written agreement for valid consent.

The criminal offense is a Class E felony (1 to 6 years, fine up to $3,000) for intentional disclosure, threat to disclose, or solicitation to disclose with intent to harass, annoy, threaten, alarm, or cause substantial financial or reputational harm. The offense is enhanced to a Class C felony (3 to 15 years, fine up to $10,000) where the creation, reproduction, or distribution could reasonably be expected to affect administrative, legislative, or judicial proceedings, or to facilitate violence. The aggravated tier reaches deepfakes used to influence elections, court testimony, regulatory hearings, or to incite physical harm.

A Senate Amendment (SA0349) added Section 230-style liability protection for telecommunications service providers acting as conduits without knowledge of the unlawful character of the content.

Recording at Work: Tennessee Employees and Employers Under Stericycle

Can Your Employer Record You?

Tennessee employers can record in common work areas where employees lack a reasonable expectation of privacy: break rooms, open offices, sales floors, retail counters, and warehouse work bays. They cannot lawfully record in:

• Bathrooms
• Locker rooms
• Changing areas
• Closed-door private offices used for confidential meetings
• Any area covered by section 39-13-605 if intimate-area imagery is involved

Audio recording in common work areas requires that at least one party to any recorded conversation has consented. Video-only surveillance in non-private common areas is generally permissible, subject to any union contract or workplace policy in place.

Can You Record Your Employer?

Yes. Tennessee law permits an employee to record any conversation they participate in with a supervisor, HR representative, coworker, or customer. This is valuable for documenting workplace harassment or discrimination, recording performance reviews or disciplinary meetings, and building an evidentiary record for an EEOC, NLRB, or wrongful-discharge claim.

Stericycle Constrains Employer No-Recording Rules

A blanket employer no-recording rule does not necessarily survive federal scrutiny. Stericycle, Inc. and Teamsters Local 628, 372 NLRB No. 113 (Aug. 2, 2023), established the current Board test for workplace rules under the National Labor Relations Act. A rule is presumptively unlawful if a reasonable employee, economically dependent on the employer and contemplating Section 7 protected concerted activity, could interpret it to chill those rights. The employer must rebut by proving a legitimate, substantial business interest that cannot be achieved through a more narrowly tailored rule. A blanket "no recording" rule typically fails this test because Section 7 activity (organizing, discussing wages, documenting unsafe conditions) is exactly what recording often serves. Stericycle remains binding Board precedent for Tennessee private employers covered by the NLRA.

What GC 25-05 and GC 25-07 Do, and What They Do Not Do

NLRB General Counsel Memo 25-05 (February 14, 2025) rescinded 31 Biden-era General Counsel memoranda and reinstated several Boeing-era directives, signaling a more lenient prosecutorial posture toward employer rules. It does not overrule Stericycle; only the Board itself can do that. Tennessee employers should not interpret GC 25-05 as a license to enforce blanket no-recording rules.

NLRB General Counsel Memo 25-07 (June 25, 2025) instructs regions to issue complaints alleging bad-faith bargaining when a party secretly records collective-bargaining sessions, treating such recording as a per se violation of the duty to bargain in good faith. The scope is narrow: bargaining sessions only, not general workplace recording.

Practical Limits on Workplace Recording

Even where Tennessee state law and federal labor law authorize a recording, the legality of the recording does not by itself protect an employee from at-will termination. Section 7 protected concerted activity is one limit on retaliation; a state public-policy claim may be another in narrow circumstances. Employees considering recording for an EEOC, OSHA, NLRB, or wage-and-hour matter should consult counsel about timing, retention, and disclosure.

Recording Police, Public Officials, and Public Meetings

Can You Record Tennessee Police?

Most likely yes, but the legal architecture deserves more honesty than the typical one-line answer offers. The Sixth Circuit, which covers Tennessee, has not published a binding decision recognizing a First Amendment right of citizens to record police performing public duties. Three case-law points control:

• Crawford v. Geiger, 656 F. App'x 190 (6th Cir. 2016), is the closest case in point but is unpublished (Federal Appendix) and persuasive only. The panel affirmed denial of qualified immunity to deputies who arrested plaintiffs for recording a police encounter, but it did not announce a circuit-wide right.
• Hils v. Davis, 52 F.4th 997 (6th Cir. 2022), is published but not on point. Hils holds that police officers themselves and their union representatives have no First Amendment right to record their own internal misconduct interviews; it is not a civilian-recording case.
• Boddie v. American Broadcasting Cos., 881 F.2d 267 (6th Cir. 1989), is binding 6th Circuit authority on the criminal-or-tortious-purpose carve-out under ECPA section 2511(2)(d) and limits the one-party rule when the recording is made for an unlawful purpose.

Tennessee district courts have generally recognized a citizen's right to record police on duty in public by analogy to sister-circuit decisions: Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011); Fields v. City of Philadelphia, 862 F.3d 353 (3d Cir. 2017); Turner v. Lieutenant Driver, 848 F.3d 678 (5th Cir. 2017); ACLU of Illinois v. Alvarez, 679 F.3d 583 (7th Cir. 2012); Smith v. City of Cumming, 212 F.3d 1332 (11th Cir. 2000). These are persuasive only, and qualified-immunity outcomes vary in Tennessee because there is no controlling Sixth Circuit holding. A separate floor still applies: Tennessee's one-party consent rule independently permits a citizen who is in conversation with a police officer to record the conversation.

Practical Limits on Recording Police

Whatever the constitutional posture, do not physically interfere with police operations, do not trespass on private property to obtain a better angle, follow lawful orders to step back to a safe distance, and do not obstruct the officer's ability to perform their duties.

Recording Government Meetings

The Tennessee Open Meetings Act, Tenn. Code Ann. section 8-44-101 et seq., requires most government meetings to be open to the public. Recording at these public meetings (city and county commission meetings, school board meetings, state legislative proceedings, public hearings, town halls, planning and zoning) is generally permitted, although the body may impose reasonable manner restrictions on equipment placement. The Tennessee Comptroller's Office of Open Records Counsel publishes guidance on Open Meetings compliance and handles complaints about access.

Tennessee Body-Cam Footage

Tennessee has no statewide statutory mandate that police wear body cameras; body-cam policy is set by each Tennessee law-enforcement agency. Footage is presumptively a public record under Tenn. Code Ann. section 10-7-503, but Tenn. Code Ann. section 10-7-504(u) makes body-worn camera footage confidential when recorded inside (a) the interior of a private residence not under criminal investigation, (b) a state-licensed healthcare, rehabilitation, or mental-health facility, or (c) a school serving K-12 students. The exemption is location-based, not content-based. Footage captured outside these locations remains presumptively public, subject to redaction. (Older guides sometimes cite "Tenn. Code Ann. section 38-3-127" as the body-cam statute. That citation does not exist in current Tennessee Code; the operative regime is section 10-7-504(u).)

Specific Situations

Can I Record My Landlord, Doctor, or DCS Worker in Tennessee?

Yes in each case, if you are part of the conversation. Tennessee one-party consent under section 39-13-601 covers tenant-landlord conversations, medical appointments you attend, and Department of Children's Services home visits and interviews. HIPAA does not reach the patient's own recording because patients are not "covered entities." A provider or agency may still have an internal policy and may decline to continue if you insist on recording. Tenn. Code Ann. section 63-6-214 authorizes the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners to discipline physicians for surreptitious recording of patients; the patient's own one-party recording does not raise the same issue.

Can I Record My Ex-Spouse or Co-Parent?

Yes, during conversations you are part of. Do not record your children's private conversations unless you are a participant, and do not instruct children to secretly record the other parent. Tennessee family courts have broad evidentiary discretion, and the Boddie carve-out still applies; recording to harass or fabricate evidence is unlawful.

Can I Use a Dashcam, or Record Zoom and Teams Calls?

Yes in both cases. Dashcams are legal in Tennessee with no specific state restriction; mount the camera so it does not obstruct your view, and audio follows the one-party rule because the driver is a party. Video conferencing is reached by section 39-13-601 as a wire or electronic communication, so a participant may record without notifying the others. The cross-state rule may pull in stricter law if any other participant is located in an all-party state.

Federal Overlay: ECPA, FCC, NLRB, FTC, TAKE IT DOWN Act

Tennessee's state framework operates inside several federal layers. Where state and federal law set different floors, the stricter rule controls within its zone.

ECPA: The Federal One-Party Floor

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. sections 2510 to 2522, supplies the federal one-party-consent floor. Section 2511(2)(d) authorizes a participant or anyone with the prior consent of one party to lawfully intercept. ECPA sets a floor, not a ceiling, and does not preempt stricter state law. Tennessee's section 39-13-601 mirrors the ECPA floor, so a Tennessee-to-Tennessee call follows the Tennessee one-party rule. A Tennessee-to-two-party-state call shifts to the stricter framework. The Boddie criminal-or-tortious-purpose carve-out lives at the ECPA layer.

FCC Declaratory Ruling 24-17 (AI Voice in Robocalls): In Force

FCC Declaratory Ruling 24-17 (released February 8, 2024) clarified that AI-generated voices in robocalls qualify as "artificial or prerecorded voice" under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. section 227. Calls placed with synthetic or AI voices to Tennessee numbers require the called party's prior express consent and must include identification, callback number, and opt-out mechanisms. The ruling is in force as of 2026-05-09 and has not been vacated. Consent to receive an AI-voice call does not equal consent to record it under section 39-13-601, and the ELVIS Act adds a third layer restricting AI imitation of an identifiable Tennessean's voice.

FCC Order 24-24 (One-to-One Consent Rule): VACATED

FCC Order 24-24, the "one-to-one consent rule," was vacated by the Eleventh Circuit in Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd. v. FCC, No. 24-10277 (11th Cir. Jan. 24, 2025), with the mandate issuing April 30, 2025. The rule is not in effect. Tennessee insurance, home-services, and lead-generation callers should not treat it as live regulation, while still complying with TCPA prior-express-consent requirements.

47 CFR Section 64.501: REMOVED

47 CFR section 64.501, the historic carrier monitoring-or-recording disclosure rule, was removed effective November 20, 2017 and is not live regulation. The current carrier framework is 47 CFR Part 64 Subpart E, governing Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI). Older guides that point to section 64.501 as a live "beep tone" requirement are incorrect.

NLRB: Stericycle, GC 25-05, GC 25-07

The Stericycle framework discussed in the workplace section above is the federal labor-law overlay on Tennessee employer recording rules. Stericycle remains binding Board precedent; GC 25-05 changed only prosecutorial posture; GC 25-07 is narrowly scoped to bargaining-session secret recording.

FTC v. Ring: Camera-Vendor Practices

FTC v. Ring LLC (FTC Matter No. 2023113, May 2023) settled for $5.8 million and required Ring to limit human review of customer videos to narrow circumstances or with express informed consent. The settlement signals federal expectations for camera-vendor consent practices, AI-training disclosures, and human-access safeguards. Tennessee homeowners and businesses using doorbell or surveillance cameras should treat the FTC v. Ring framework as a baseline for choosing vendors and reviewing terms of service.

TAKE IT DOWN Act: Platform Compliance Deadline May 19, 2026

The federal TAKE IT DOWN Act (S. 146, 119th Congress), signed May 19, 2025, criminalizes knowing publication of nonconsensual intimate visual depictions and "digital forgery" deepfakes via interactive computer service. The criminal provisions took effect immediately on signing. The platform notice-and-removal compliance deadline is May 19, 2026, requiring covered platforms to act within 48 hours of valid notice. As of 2026-05-09 the deadline is ten days away; treat the obligation as live. The TAKE IT DOWN Act and Tennessee's 2025 Preventing Deepfake Images Act operate as parallel frameworks: the federal Act creates a notice-and-removal duty plus a federal criminal offense; the Tennessee Act creates a state criminal offense plus a civil cause of action with pseudonym protection.

CALEA, DOJ Justice Manual, HIPAA, and Regulation F

CALEA (47 U.S.C. sections 1001 to 1010) requires telecom carriers to design networks to permit lawful interception, but does not change the consumer-facing Tennessee rule. DOJ Justice Manual section 9-7.302 confirms federal one-party consent practice for warrantless interception by federal agents and cooperators. HIPAA Privacy Rule (45 CFR Part 164) reaches covered entities, not patients; it does not bar a patient from recording their own provider visit. CFPB Regulation F (12 CFR Part 1006) governs FDCPA debt-collection communications and imposes no recording-disclosure requirement above state law.

Using Recordings as Evidence in Tennessee

Recordings made lawfully under Tennessee's one-party consent rule are generally admissible in both criminal and civil proceedings, subject to authentication, relevance, hearsay, and Rule 403 balancing. You must establish that the recording is genuine, accurate, and unaltered; preserving the original file with metadata intact is important.

The rules differ by proceeding. In criminal cases, illegally obtained recordings are typically inadmissible, and making an illegal recording can itself be charged as a Class D felony. In civil cases, Tennessee courts have somewhat more flexibility, but illegally obtained recordings remain generally inadmissible, and the recorder faces independent civil exposure under section 39-13-603.

To preserve a recording for use in court, save the original file without editing or compressing it, note the date, time, location, and participants, store backup copies with chain-of-custody documentation, and consult counsel about authentication procedures and any sealing motions before sharing the recording widely.

More Tennessee Laws

• Tennessee Child Support Laws
• Tennessee Statute of Limitations
• Tennessee Lemon Laws
• Tennessee Hit and Run Laws
• Tennessee Whistleblower Laws
• Tennessee Sexting Laws

Tennessee Recording Laws by Topic

Each of the 12 pages below covers a specific Tennessee recording-law context in greater depth than this hub can. Use them to drill into the rule that applies to your situation.

• Tennessee Audio Recording Laws: One-Party Consent Rules and Penalties
• Tennessee Dashcam Laws: Legality, Mounting Rules, and Evidence Use
• Tennessee Landlord-Tenant Recording Laws: Rights and Restrictions
• Tennessee Medical Recording Laws: Patient Rights and Provider Rules
• Tennessee Phone Call Recording Laws: One-Party Consent Rules
• Tennessee Laws on Recording Police: Your Rights and Limits
• Tennessee Laws on Recording in Public: What You Can and Cannot Film
• Tennessee School Recording Laws: Student, Parent, and Teacher Rights
• Tennessee Security Camera Laws: Home, Business, and HOA Rules
• Tennessee Video Recording Laws: What Is Legal and What Is Not
• Tennessee Voyeurism and Hidden Camera Laws: Statutes and Penalties
• Tennessee Workplace Recording Laws: Employee and Employer Rights