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

Independently fact-checkedEditor-reviewedLaw current as of November 1, 2026By Recording Law Editorial TeamReviewed November 2, 202615 min read

Independently fact-checked against primary sources (last audited November 1, 2026). · Reviewed by the RecordingLaw editorial team. · Law checked current as of November 1, 2026. · 21 primary sources cited on this page. How we verify our legal content

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

Tennessee is a one-party consent state under Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-601: any participant in a wire, oral, or electronic communication may record without notifying the other parties, unless the recording is made for the purpose of committing a criminal or tortious act, which section 39-13-601(b)(5)-(6) carves out of the one-party rule. Recording a conversation you are not part of is a Class D felony under section 39-13-602 carrying up to 12 years and a $5,000 fine. Victims may also bring a civil action under the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. section 2520, when the recording also violated federal law (Tennessee's own civil remedy, formerly at section 39-13-603, was repealed in its entirety effective May 28, 2024 by Public Chapter 1045 of 2024, with no state-law replacement). Under section 2520 a court may award actual damages or statutory damages of the greater of $100 a day or $10,000.

Tennessee recording law at a glance

QuestionAnswer
Consent ruleOne-party consent
Controlling statuteTenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-601
Can you record your own calls?Yes, without notifying the other party, unless the recording is made for the purpose of committing a criminal or tortious act (section 39-13-601(b)(5)-(6))
Criminal penaltyClass D felony, 2 to 12 years, fine up to $5,000
Civil remedyFederal ECPA, 18 U.S.C. section 2520: the court may award actual damages or statutory damages of the greater of $100 a day or $10,000, plus punitives and attorney fees (state remedy at former section 39-13-603 repealed May 2024, not replaced)
Civil SOL2 years from discovery
Hidden camerasClass E felony (base); Class D felony for dissemination, a victim under 13, or a minor used to facilitate; Class C felony for dissemination plus a victim under 13 or use of a position of trust or authority (section 39-13-605, as rewritten by Public Chapter 474 of 2025)
Recording policeNo published Sixth Circuit decision recognizes a First Amendment right; one-party consent covers conversations you take part in

For more on specific recording contexts, see the in-depth guides below.

Tennessee lets a participant record a call or conversation without telling others; intercepting talk you are not part of, with no participant's consent, is a Class D felony with 2 to 12 years.
In Tennessee, being in the conversation or having one participant agree is what makes audio recording legal, unless it is made to commit a crime or tort. Hidden cameras and police have their own rules.

Recording in-person conversations in Tennessee

Under Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-601, it is lawful to record any wire, oral, or electronic communication you are a party to, or that one party has consented to, without telling anyone else. The statute covers face-to-face oral communications, but only those where the speaker has a reasonable expectation that the conversation is not being intercepted. A conversation spoken loudly in a crowded restaurant or on a public sidewalk generally carries no such expectation, so recording it does not require participant consent. Closing a door or lowering a voice in an otherwise public setting can establish a privacy expectation.

Recording becomes a Class D felony when you intercept a conversation you are not part of and no participant has consented, or when you use or disclose a recording you knew was obtained illegally.

Tennessee two people seated across a small table mid-conversation, seen from behind one shoulder

One important limit is written into the Tennessee statute itself. Section 39-13-601(b)(5) makes a participant's recording lawful only "unless the communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the constitution or laws of this state," and section 39-13-601(b)(6) separately provides that it is unlawful to intercept any wire, oral, or electronic communication for the purpose of committing a criminal act. Lose that exception and the recording falls back under section 39-13-601(a), which section 39-13-602 punishes as a Class D felony. Federal law has a parallel rule: under 18 U.S.C. section 2511(2)(d), a participant may record unless the recording is made to commit a crime or a tort. The federal rule adds civil exposure; the Tennessee provision is what turns the same recording into a felony. Documenting harassment or preserving an oral agreement is lawful. Recording to set up extortion or blackmail is not, even as a participant.

Recording phone calls in Tennessee

The same one-party rule applies to landline calls, cell phone calls (section 39-13-604 separately makes it a Class A misdemeanor to record or disseminate a cellular call without any party's consent, or to disseminate a cordless call without a court order, rising to a Class E felony if the defendant knowingly disseminates the communication to another), VoIP and conferencing platforms such as Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet, and video calls with audio. Tennessee imposes no statutory beep-tone requirement and no oral disclosure requirement on private parties.

desk phone with its handset off the hook lying beside the base

When a Tennessee caller is on the phone with someone in an all-party consent state, the safest course is to obtain consent from every participant before recording. Thirteen states require the consent of every party for at least one major kind of conversation: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Some have limits: Connecticut and Nevada apply the rule to phone calls only, Oregon applies it to in-person conversations only (its phone-call rule is one-party), and Delaware has two conflicting statutes, so getting everyone's consent is the safe course there. Nevada's all-party rule for calls comes from the Nevada Supreme Court's reading of NRS 200.620 in Lane v. Allstate Ins. Co. (1998), confirmed in Ditech Financial LLC v. Buckles (2017).

No single rule decides which state's law governs a call between states. The Nevada Supreme Court held in Ditech that its statute does not reach a call recorded outside Nevada, while the California Supreme Court, in Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney (2006), applied California's all-party rule to a Georgia firm that recorded calls with California clients, but only going forward; Georgia law still governed the firm's liability for its past recordings. The safest course is to tell everyone on the call that you are recording.

Our recording consent checker can show how Tennessee's rule compares with the other participant's state before you record.

Tennessee businesses recording customer or employee calls face no state disclosure mandate, though many still announce the recording to handle cross-border calls cleanly. Recordings that retain personally identifiable information may also fall under the Tennessee Information Protection Act (TIPA), effective July 1, 2025, which governs consumer data retention and deletion practices.

For a deeper look, see Tennessee Phone Call Recording Laws.

Hidden cameras, doorbells, and nanny cams

As of July 1, 2025, Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-605, as rewritten by Public Chapter 474 of 2025, defines unlawful photography in three ways. The first covers photographing someone who has a reasonable expectation of privacy, without consent, where the photo would offend or embarrass an ordinary person and was taken for sexual arousal or gratification, or where the photo includes their unclothed intimate area or sexual activity and the photographer knew it would.

The second covers photographing someone's unclothed intimate area, where they expect privacy, to offend, intimidate, embarrass, ridicule or harass them, when the photo is shared or its sharing is threatened. The third covers photography focused on an intimate area for sexual arousal or gratification, and it applies regardless of whether the subject had a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The base offense under the first and third pathways is a Class E felony (1 to 6 years). It rises to a Class D felony (2 to 12 years) if the defendant disseminated the photograph, the victim was under 13, or a minor under 13 was used to facilitate the offense, and to a Class C felony (3 to 15 years) if the defendant disseminated the photograph and either the victim was under 13 or the defendant used a position of trust over the victim. The second, dissemination-focused pathway is a Class B misdemeanor for a first violation and a Class A misdemeanor for a second or subsequent violation. For offenses under the first or third pathway committed on or after July 1, 2025, the judge must order sex-offender registration.

A Ring doorbell capturing porch visitors, a nanny cam in a common room, a dashcam on a public road, or a security camera in a parking lot does not trigger section 39-13-605 in the ordinary case, because these devices are not focused on an intimate area for sexual arousal or gratification and, for the other pathways, the location carries no reasonable expectation of privacy. If the camera also captures audio, section 39-13-601 applies. One-party consent covers conversations the homeowner takes part in, but recording conversations between other people that the homeowner is not part of, such as visitors talking at the door, can be an illegal interception when those people reasonably expect not to be overheard. The FTC v. Ring LLC settlement (FTC Matter No. 2023113, May 2023) governs vendor-side cloud review, AI training, and human access to customer video, and provides a practical baseline for choosing camera vendors.

Note: Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-609, which some older guides mislabel an "AI photographing" statute, is actually the Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act, restricting law-enforcement drone use. It has no bearing on private cameras or AI image generation.

For more detail, see Tennessee Voyeurism and Hidden Camera Laws and Tennessee Security Camera Laws.

Penalties for illegal recording in Tennessee

Unlawful interception in Tennessee is a Class D felony, and a victim may also bring a federal civil claim, so the same recording can lead to both a criminal charge and a lawsuit.

Tennessee recording penalties run from a Class A misdemeanor for recording a cell call without any party's consent to a Class D felony with 2 to 12 years for interception.
Intercepting or disclosing communications illegally is a Class D felony in Tennessee. The cell and cordless call offenses start as a misdemeanor.

Criminal penalties

OffenseStatuteClassPenalty
Wiretapping or illegal interceptionsection 39-13-602Class D felony2 to 12 years; fine up to $5,000
Disclosing illegally obtained communicationssection 39-13-602Class D felony2 to 12 years; fine up to $5,000
Recording a cell phone call without any party's consent, or disseminating a cordless callsection 39-13-604Class A misdemeanorUp to 11 mo. 29 d.; fine up to $2,500
Cellular interception with disseminationsection 39-13-604Class E felony1 to 6 years
Unlawful photography (base, sexual-arousal or intimate-area pathway)section 39-13-605Class E felony1 to 6 years
Unlawful photography (dissemination, victim under 13, or minor under 13 used to facilitate)section 39-13-605Class D felony2 to 12 years
Unlawful photography (dissemination plus victim under 13 or use of a position of trust or authority)section 39-13-605Class C felony3 to 15 years
Unlawful photography (dissemination-focused, first violation)section 39-13-605Class B misdemeanorUp to 6 months; fine up to $500
Unlawful photography (dissemination-focused, repeat violation)section 39-13-605Class A misdemeanorUp to 11 mo. 29 d.; fine up to $2,500

Range I (standard offender) for a Class D felony is 2 to 4 years; Range II is 4 to 8 years; Range III is 8 to 12 years (section 40-35-112).

Civil liability

Tennessee's own statutory civil action for wiretap violations, formerly at Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-603, was repealed in its entirety effective May 28, 2024 by Public Chapter 1045 of 2024 (SB 2221), section 3. No replacement civil-remedy statute was enacted; section 39-13-601(a)(2) still cross-references a private suit "as provided in [former] section 39-13-603 [repealed]," a stale reference the general assembly has not updated.

Victims are not without recourse. The federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act's civil provision, 18 U.S.C. section 2520, reaches interceptions that violate the federal Wiretap Act. A court may award the greater of (a) actual damages plus the violator's profits or (b) statutory damages of the greater of $100 a day or $10,000, along with punitive damages, reasonable attorney fees and costs, and injunctive or declaratory relief in appropriate cases. 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.

Under 18 U.S.C. section 2520(d), good-faith reliance on a court warrant or order, a grand jury subpoena, or a legislative or statutory authorization is a complete defense to a federal claim. Tennessee's similar state-law defense was repealed with section 39-13-603 in 2024.

Tennessee two office chairs angled toward each other beside a window with a small voice recorder on the side table

Recording the police in Tennessee

The Sixth Circuit, which covers Tennessee, has not issued a published decision recognizing a First Amendment right to record police in public, so decisions from other circuits are persuasive but not binding here, and in the Sixth Circuit the right is not clearly established for a damages suit. We found no Tennessee court decision recognizing the right.

Crawford v. Geiger, 656 F. App'x 190 (6th Cir. 2016), the closest case on point, is unpublished (Federal Appendix) and persuasive only. The panel reversed the denial of qualified immunity for one officer and affirmed it for another on Fourth Amendment excessive-force and unreasonable-seizure claims. The plaintiffs' First Amendment claims over being prevented from recording had already been dismissed at summary judgment in the district court and were not before the panel, so it did not decide whether a right to record police exists. Hils v. Davis, 52 F.4th 997 (6th Cir. 2022), is published but different in scope: it holds that police officers themselves lack a First Amendment right to record their own internal misconduct interviews. It does not address civilian recording.

Eight other federal appeals courts (the First, Second, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits) have held that the First Amendment protects recording police officers doing their jobs in public, subject to reasonable time, place, and manner limits, including Glik v. Cunniffe, 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011), and Fields v. City of Philadelphia, 862 F.3d 353 (3d Cir. 2017). The Fourth Circuit has held that livestreaming a police traffic stop is protected speech, and the Supreme Court has not ruled. Those decisions are persuasive in Tennessee, not binding, which is one reason officers sued here over stopping a recording have strong qualified-immunity arguments. A separate, simpler floor applies: Tennessee one-party consent independently permits any citizen who is in conversation with an officer to record that conversation.

Practical limits apply regardless of the constitutional posture: do not physically interfere with police operations, do not trespass to obtain a better angle, and follow lawful orders to step to a safe distance.

The Tennessee Open Meetings Act (Tenn. Code Ann. section 8-44-101 et seq.) requires most government meetings to be open to the public. The Act itself does not say whether attendees may record, so check the body's own rules, and record openly without disrupting the meeting. Body-worn camera footage is generally open to inspection under Tenn. Code Ann. section 10-7-503 unless an exemption applies. Among the exemptions, section 10-7-504(u) makes footage confidential when it depicts the interior of a private residence not being investigated as a crime scene, the interior of a facility licensed under Title 33 or Title 68, or minors in a K-12 school, child care agency or program, preschool, or nursery school. The exemption turns on the setting the video shows, and for schools and child care settings on whether minors appear, not on the subject of the police encounter.

For a deeper treatment, see Tennessee Laws on Recording Police.

Special topics in Tennessee

The ELVIS Act: AI voice protection

The Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act of 2024 (ELVIS Act), codified at Tenn. Code Ann. section 47-25-1101 et seq. (Public Chapter 588 of 2024, HB 2091 / SB 2096), signed in March 2024 and effective July 1, 2024, added a person's voice to Tennessee's right of publicity and defined voice to include a simulation of it, which reaches unauthorized AI imitation. The Act covers simulated or AI-generated voices that are readily identifiable as a particular individual, creates liability for anyone who makes available a tool or service whose primary purpose is unauthorized production of an identifiable voice or likeness, and lets the person harmed seek an injunction, actual damages, and the user's profits from the unauthorized use; treble damages and attorney fees are available when the person harmed is a member of the armed forces, and other remedies provided by law remain available. Fictional uses falsely presented as authentic are not protected, but news, public affairs, satire, and fair-comment uses are. A lawful one-party recording under section 39-13-601 can still become an ELVIS Act violation if the recording is then used to train or generate an AI voice clone of an identifiable Tennessean without authorization.

2025 Preventing Deepfake Images Act

The Preventing Deepfake Images Act (Public Chapter 466 of 2025, HB 1299 / SB 1346), effective July 1, 2025, adds a new part to Tenn. Code Ann. Title 39, Chapter 17. Section 39-17-1906 makes it a Class E felony (1 to 6 years; fine up to $3,000) to disclose, threaten to disclose, or solicit the disclosure of an intimate digital depiction with intent to harass, annoy, threaten, alarm, or cause substantial financial or reputational harm to the person depicted, or knowing or recklessly disregarding that it will cause them harm. It is a Class C felony (3 to 15 years; fine up to $10,000) where the creation or distribution could reasonably be expected to affect an administrative, legislative, or judicial proceeding, including the administration of an election, or to facilitate violence. The civil cause of action in section 39-17-1904 allows recovery of the defendant's gain, actual damages or liquidated damages of $150,000, plus punitive damages, attorney fees, and injunctive relief; plaintiffs may proceed under a pseudonym. Consent to creation does not equal consent to disclosure; the Act requires a signed written agreement for valid consent.

Workplace recording and the NLRB

Tennessee one-party consent permits an employee to record any workplace conversation they participate in, including meetings with HR or management. The employer's ability to prohibit recording is constrained federally: Stericycle, Inc. and Teamsters Local 628, 372 NLRB No. 113 (Aug. 2, 2023), sets the test: a work rule, such as a no-recording rule, that would reasonably tend to chill employees' Section 7 rights is presumed unlawful unless the employer shows it advances a legitimate and substantial business interest that a more narrowly tailored rule could not serve. Section 7 of the NLRA protects concerted activity that recording often serves. Stericycle remains the Board's standard for judging workplace rules, though the current Board has signaled it may revisit it. NLRB General Counsel Memo 25-05 (Feb. 14, 2025) changed only prosecutorial posture and did not overrule Stericycle. NLRB General Counsel Memo 25-07 (June 25, 2025) is narrowly scoped to surreptitious recording of collective-bargaining sessions. For more, see Tennessee Workplace Recording Laws.

Federal overlay: ECPA, FCC, TAKE IT DOWN Act

ECPA (18 U.S.C. sections 2510-2522) sets a one-party federal floor that mirrors Tennessee law; it does not preempt stricter state statutes. FCC Declaratory Ruling 24-17 (Feb. 8, 2024) treats AI-generated voices in robocalls as "artificial or prerecorded voice" under the TCPA, requiring prior express consent for calls to Tennessee numbers; the FCC's one-to-one consent rule for lead-generated calls (adopted in FCC 23-107) was vacated by the Eleventh Circuit, Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd. v. FCC, No. 24-10277 (11th Cir. Jan. 24, 2025), mandate issued April 30, 2025. The TAKE IT DOWN Act (S. 146, 119th Congress, signed May 19, 2025) criminalized knowing publication of nonconsensual intimate visual depictions; its platform notice-and-removal compliance deadline of May 19, 2026, has now passed and the obligation is in full effect. The Tennessee 2025 Deepfake Act and the federal TAKE IT DOWN Act operate as parallel frameworks: the federal Act creates a platform removal duty and a federal criminal offense; the Tennessee Act creates a state criminal offense and a civil cause of action with pseudonym protection.

Tennessee wooden gavel on a sound block on a judge's bench

  • July 1, 2024: ELVIS Act (Tenn. Code Ann. section 47-25-1101 et seq., Public Chapter 588 of 2024) effective, adding voice, including simulated or AI-generated imitations, to Tennessee's right of publicity.
  • May 28/July 1, 2024: Public Chapter 1045 of 2024 (SB 2221) repealed Tennessee's own civil action for interception (former section 39-13-603) with no state-law replacement, and revised business-vendor disclosure provisions in the wiretap statute; the one-party consent rule was unchanged.
  • August 2, 2023: Stericycle, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 113, set the current test for employer no-recording rules under the NLRA.
  • May 2023: FTC v. Ring LLC settled for $5.8 million, establishing vendor-side standards for camera cloud access and AI training.
  • July 1, 2025: Preventing Deepfake Images Act (Public Chapter 466 of 2025) effective, adding Class E / Class C criminal penalties and a $150,000 liquidated-damages civil cause of action for nonconsensual intimate digital depictions.
  • July 1, 2025: Public Chapter 474 of 2025 substantially rewrote the unlawful photography statute, section 39-13-605, raising the base offense to a Class E felony and adding a pathway that applies regardless of whether the subject had a reasonable expectation of privacy.
  • July 1, 2025: Tennessee Information Protection Act (TIPA) effective, covering personal data including recordings linked to identifiable individuals.
  • May 19, 2026: Federal TAKE IT DOWN Act platform compliance deadline passed; covered platforms must remove nonconsensual intimate depictions within 48 hours of valid notice.

Tennessee recording laws in depth

By type of recording

By place or relationship

More Tennessee 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 Tennessee attorney.

More Tennessee Laws

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Tennessee a one-party or two-party consent state for recording?

Tennessee is a one-party consent state. Under Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-601, a participant in a wire, oral, or electronic communication, or anyone with the prior consent of one party, may lawfully record without notifying the other parties. That exception has a limit written into the statute itself: section 39-13-601(b)(5)-(6) withdraws it where the communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing a criminal or tortious act, which leaves the recording punishable as a Class D felony under section 39-13-602. Recording a conversation you are not part of, with no participant consent, is also a Class D felony.

Is recording without consent in Tennessee a felony?

Yes. Unlawful interception under section 39-13-601 is a Class D felony under section 39-13-602 carrying 2 to 12 years in prison (Range I-III under section 40-35-112) and a fine up to $5,000 under section 40-35-111(b)(4). Tennessee's own civil action, formerly at section 39-13-603, was repealed effective May 2024 with no state-law replacement, but civil exposure remains under the federal ECPA (18 U.S.C. section 2520) when the recording also violated federal law, where a court may award actual damages or statutory damages of the greater of $100 a day or $10,000, plus punitive damages and attorney fees.

Can I record a phone call from Tennessee to someone in California, Florida, or Pennsylvania?

The safest course is to obtain consent from every party before recording. ECPA sets a one-party federal floor but does not preempt stricter state statutes. California, Florida, and Pennsylvania are typically treated as all-party consent states. Which state's law controls a multistate call varies by court, so disclosing the recording before the conversation begins eliminates the risk.

Can I record a meeting with my boss or HR in Tennessee?

Yes, if you are in the meeting. Tennessee one-party consent under section 39-13-601 allows any participant to record. Under the NLRB's Stericycle standard (372 NLRB No. 113, Aug. 2, 2023), an employer no-recording rule that would reasonably tend to chill protected activity is presumed unlawful unless the employer shows a legitimate and substantial business interest that a more narrowly tailored rule could not serve. Stericycle remains the Board's standard, though the current Board has signaled it may revisit it.

Are Ring doorbells and home security cameras legal in Tennessee?

Yes, generally. Ordinary porch or common-area video does not trigger section 39-13-605, which (as rewritten effective July 1, 2025 by Public Chapter 474 of 2025) reaches photography taken for sexual arousal or gratification or focused on an intimate area, not routine security footage. If the camera captures audio, section 39-13-601 applies: one-party consent covers conversations the homeowner takes part in, but recording other people's private conversations that the homeowner is not part of can be illegal.

Can I record Tennessee police during a traffic stop or in public?

You can record a traffic stop you are part of under Tennessee's one-party consent law. For filming police you are not speaking with, the Sixth Circuit, which covers Tennessee, has not issued a published decision recognizing a First Amendment right to record police, so the right is not clearly established here, although eight other federal appeals courts have recognized it. Crawford v. Geiger, 656 F. App'x 190 (6th Cir. 2016), is unpublished and did not decide the question. Record openly from a safe distance and do not interfere. Separately, Tennessee one-party consent independently allows you to record any conversation you are part of, including with an officer.

What does the ELVIS Act do, and does it affect recording someone's voice?

The ELVIS Act (Tenn. Code Ann. section 47-25-1101 et seq., Public Chapter 588 of 2024, effective July 1, 2024) added a person's voice, including a simulated or AI-generated imitation of it, to Tennessee's right-of-publicity property right. A lawful one-party recording under section 39-13-601 can become an ELVIS Act violation if the recording is then used to train or generate an AI voice clone of an identifiable Tennessean without authorization.

What are Tennessee's civil damages for illegal recording?

Tennessee's own civil-damages statute, formerly at section 39-13-603, was repealed in its entirety effective May 28, 2024 by Public Chapter 1045 of 2024, with no state-law replacement. Under the federal ECPA (18 U.S.C. section 2520), when the interception also violated federal law, a court may award actual damages plus the violator's profits, or statutory damages of the greater of $100 a day or $10,000, plus punitive damages, attorney fees, and litigation costs in appropriate cases. Injunctive relief is also available. The statute of limitations is 2 years from the date the claimant first had a reasonable opportunity to discover the violation.

Updates

Clarified that the Class C tier for unlawful photography requires that the defendant used a position of trust or authority to commit it.

We narrowed the description of Tennessee's cellular and cordless call statute to what it covers, noted that body-camera footage has more than one public-records exemption, stated the Stericycle rebuttal test precisely, and clarified that Kearney applied California law only going forward.

We corrected the police section, which wrongly said Tennessee courts recognize a right to record police (the Sixth Circuit has not, and the right is not clearly established there), showed that federal wiretap damages are discretionary, and corrected the FCC vacatur, ELVIS Act remedies, unlawful-photography pathways, the all-party state list (13 states, with scope limits), the interstate-call rule, doorbell-camera audio, and a false changelog note.

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

Corrected the description of Crawford v. Geiger (6th Cir. 2016): the panel split its qualified-immunity ruling between two officers on Fourth Amendment claims and did not reach the First Amendment recording claims, which the district court had already dismissed.

Clarified that the criminal-or-tortious-purpose limit on Tennessee one-party consent recording comes from the Tennessee statute itself at Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-601(b)(5)-(6), not only from federal law, and carried that qualifier into the article summary, key takeaways, at-a-glance table, and FAQ.

Corrected the criminal-penalty classification for cellular and cordless call interception (Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-604 is a Class A misdemeanor rising to a Class E felony on dissemination, not a Class D felony) and updated the unlawful-photography statute (section 39-13-605) throughout the page to reflect the July 1, 2025 rewrite by Public Chapter 474 of 2025, which raised the base offense to a Class E felony and added a pathway that applies regardless of reasonable expectation of privacy.

Independently fact-checked against the cited primary sources

Governing law re-checked for recent changes

Governing law re-checked for recent changes

Verified the page's existing repeal coverage for Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-603 (effective May 28, 2024) and added the repeal to the Recent Legal Developments timeline for consistency; removed an outdated law.justia.com citation for the repealed section.

Competitive gap-check against the Tennessee Bar Association Journal's top-ranked recording-law article. Corrected a hallucinated citation introduced by the 2026-06-05 audit pass, which had claimed the repealed civil-action statute (former section 39-13-603) was consolidated into Tenn. Code Ann. Title 40, Chapter 6, Part 3. Verified against the enacted text of Public Chapter 1045 of 2024 and the current Tennessee Code (Justia): section 39-13-603 was deleted in its entirety with no replacement civil-remedy statute anywhere in Title 39 or Title 40, Chapter 6, Part 3, and 39-13-601(a)(2) still carries a stale cross-reference to the repealed section. Corrected all five references (intro paragraph, KeyTakeaways, at-a-glance table, Civil Liability section, two FAQ answers) to point to the surviving federal remedy, 18 U.S.C. section 2520, which the repealed state provision mirrored almost verbatim. Also added Nevada to the list of states requiring all-party phone-call consent (Lane v. Allstate Ins. Co., 114 Nev. 1176 (1998)), matching this site's own Nevada page classification.

Reviewed and approved by an editor

Restructured for readability: rewrote as short-paragraph sections (in-person, phone, hidden cameras, penalties, police, special topics), condensed federal overlay and NLRB material into Special Topics subsections, added in-depth index with By-type and By-place groupings, refreshed FAQ to 8 plain-language questions, updated Recent Legal Developments bullet list through May 2026 (TAKE IT DOWN Act platform deadline), confirmed ELVIS Act codification, Preventing Deepfake Images Act penalties, and Class D felony sentencing ranges against primary sources. All statutes verified against capitol.tn.gov and law.cornell.edu. Audit-fixed: corrected criminal penalty citation from section 39-13-601 to section 39-13-602 (penalty section); updated civil remedy references to note section 39-13-603 was repealed effective May 28, 2024 by Public Chapter 1045 of 2024, with no state-law replacement.

Refreshed for 2026: added ELVIS Act (Tenn. Code 47-25-1101 et seq., Public Chapter 588 of 2024) as first-in-nation AI voice and likeness protection; added 2025 Preventing Deepfake Images Act (HB 1299, Public Chapter 466 of 2025) at Title 39 Chapter 17; corrected section 39-13-609 framing to Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act (drone and law-enforcement surveillance), not AI photographing; corrected body-cam citation to section 10-7-504(u); reframed Crawford v. Geiger as unpublished persuasive only; updated FCC 24-24 to vacated; removed stale 47 CFR section 64.501; added Stericycle and NLRB GC 25-05 / 25-07 workplace overlay; added TAKE IT DOWN Act federal compliance; replaced commercial-codifier URLs with capitol.tn.gov, tncourts.gov, and uscode.house.gov.

Refreshed for 2026: added ELVIS Act (Tenn. Code 47-25-1101 et seq., Public Chapter 588 of 2024) as first-in-nation AI voice and likeness protection; added 2025 Preventing Deepfake Images Act (HB 1299, Public Chapter 466 of 2025) at Title 39 Chapter 17; corrected section 39-13-609 framing to Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act (drone and law-enforcement surveillance), not AI photographing; corrected body-cam citation to section 10-7-504(u); reframed Crawford v. Geiger as unpublished persuasive only; updated the FCC one-to-one consent rule (FCC 23-107) to vacated; removed stale 47 CFR section 64.501; added Stericycle and NLRB GC 25-05 / 25-07 workplace overlay; added TAKE IT DOWN Act federal compliance; replaced commercial-codifier URLs with capitol.tn.gov, tncourts.gov, and uscode.house.gov.

Added wearable recording devices section and related FAQs

Sources and References

  1. wapp.capitol.tn.gov.gov
  2. capitol.tn.gov.gov
  3. wapp.capitol.tn.gov.gov
  4. wapp.capitol.tn.gov.gov
  5. firstamendment.mtsu.edu
  6. uscode.house.gov.gov
  7. docs.fcc.gov.gov
  8. media.ca11.uscourts.gov.gov
  9. federalregister.gov.gov
  10. nlrb.gov.gov
  11. ftc.gov.gov
  12. congress.gov.gov
  13. mtas.tennessee.edu
  14. ecfr.gov.gov
  15. ecfr.gov.gov
  16. Governor Lee Signs ELVIS Act Into Law, March 2024(tn.gov).gov
  17. HB 1299 Bill Text, Preventing Deepfake Images Act(capitol.tn.gov).gov
  18. Tennessee Open Meetings Act FAQs, Office of Open Records Counsel (Tenn. Code Ann. section 8-44-101 et seq.)(comptroller.tn.gov).gov
  19. 18 U.S.C. section 2511 (ECPA interception prohibition and one-party consent exception)(law.cornell.edu)
  20. NLRB General Counsel Memo GC 25-05, Rescission of Certain General Counsel Memoranda (Feb. 14, 2025)(apps.nlrb.gov).gov
  21. NLRB General Counsel Memo 25-07 (June 25, 2025) on surreptitious recording of collective-bargaining sessions(nlrb.gov).gov
  22. DOJ Justice Manual section 9-7.302 (Consensual Monitoring)(justice.gov).gov
  23. 47 CFR Part 64 Subpart E (Customer Proprietary Network Information, current carrier framework)(ecfr.gov).gov
  24. 18 U.S.C. section 2520 (ECPA civil cause of action for unlawful interception)(law.cornell.edu)
  25. Public Chapter 1045 of 2024 (SB 2221), Section 3 (repealing Tenn. Code Ann. section 39-13-603 in its entirety)(publications.tnsosfiles.com).gov
  26. Lane v. Allstate Ins. Co., 114 Nev. 1176 (Nev. 1998) (NRS 200.620 read as requiring all-party consent for phone calls; reaffirmed in Ditech Financial v. Buckles, 2017)(courtlistener.com)
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