Glossary
All-party consent
All-party consent is a recording rule under which every participant in a conversation must agree before it can be recorded or intercepted. California, Florida and Maryland use it in their statutes, and it is stricter than one-party consent.
Updated October 17, 20263 cited facts, each traced to its source
Also called two-party consent.
All-party consent is the rule that every participant in a conversation must agree before it is recorded or intercepted. It is stricter than one-party consent, because the agreement of one person, including the person doing the recording, is not enough. Some US states use this rule in their wiretap or eavesdropping laws.
How the statutes are worded
California Penal Code 632 makes it an offense to intentionally record a confidential communication without the consent of all parties to it 1. The California rule applies to a confidential communication, a term that the courts interpret, so whether a particular conversation falls under it depends on the facts.
Florida's wiretap statute makes an interception lawful only when all of the parties to the communication have given prior consent 2. Maryland's wiretap exception for a party to a communication applies only where all of the parties have given prior consent 3. In each statute, the word "all" removes the shortcut that one-party rules allow.
A concrete example: an AI notetaker on a Florida video call
A consultant in Florida joins a video call with a client and turns on an AI notetaker to transcribe it. The notetaker is a recording device, and the Florida rule needs every participant to have given prior consent. A practical approach is to announce the recording at the start, tell the client which tool is recording, and begin only after everyone agrees. Many organizations also write the consent into their policy, so the question does not depend on memory.
Why it matters for dictation
Dictating your own notes alone is not a recording of other people. The rule matters when a dictation or transcription tool captures a call, an interview, a meeting or a voice memo of a conversation with others. Each of these can create a recording of people who have not agreed to it.
The same caution applies to voice memos you make in a room with others and transcribe later. In an all-party state, a recording that includes people who did not agree can create a problem even if you were there. Ask everyone present before you start, and check what the tool stores afterward.
This page describes what the statutes say and is not legal advice. The exact rule depends on the state, the type of communication and the device used, so check the statute that applies to you.
Related terms
- One-party consent: the rule that lets one participant's agreement be enough.
- Dictation: speaking so that software writes the words as you say them.
Guides and questions that cover it
Evidence
Every number on this page, with where it comes from. Open a fact to see the exact words in its source.
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Related terms
- Speech to Text Privacy: Where Your Voice GoesThe topic this term belongs to
- Attorney-client privilegeAttorney-client privilege protects confidential communications between a lawyer and their client about seeking legal advice or services. A third party who is present, or a tool that handles the conversation, can put that protection at risk.
- Biometric dataBiometric data is personal data produced by technical processing of a person's physical, physiological or behavioral characteristics that allows or confirms who that person is. A voice recording becomes biometric data when it is processed to identify the speaker.
- Business associate agreement (BAA)A business associate agreement (BAA) is the written contract that HIPAA requires before a covered entity lets a vendor create, receive, maintain or transmit protected health information on its behalf. Dictation tools used in clinics often need one, and a BAA alone does not make a product compliant.
- False accept (accidental activation)A false accept, also called a false wake or accidental activation, is when a voice assistant or dictation feature starts listening or recording although the wake word was not said. Smart speakers have been measured to wake by accident, and that can capture speech the user did not mean to share.
- Federated learningFederated learning is a way to train one machine learning model on data spread across many devices. Each device computes an update from its own data, and only those updates are sent to a server, so the raw data does not have to be collected in one place.
- On-device speech recognitionOn-device speech recognition converts speech to text with a model that runs on your own computer or phone, so the audio does not need to be sent to a server. It is also called local, offline or on-device dictation.
- One-party consentOne-party consent is a recording rule under which a conversation can be recorded lawfully when one of its participants agrees, which is usually the person doing the recording. The US federal wiretap law uses this rule, and individual states may set stricter ones.
- Protected health information (PHI)Protected health information (PHI) is individually identifiable health information that HIPAA protects when it is held or sent in electronic or other form by a covered entity or its business associate. Patient names with diagnoses, in dictated notes or voice recordings, are PHI. It is also called ePHI when held electronically.
- Speaker verificationSpeaker verification is a voice biometric check in which a system accepts or rejects a claimed identity by comparing a voice with stored models of the person claimed. It is also called voice authentication, voice ID or voice biometrics.
- Special category data (GDPR)Special category data is the group of personal data that Article 9 of the GDPR bans organizations from processing unless a listed exception applies. It includes health data and biometric data used to identify a person, and a voice recording can fall into it when it is processed that way.
- Voice cloningVoice cloning is the use of a model trained on recordings of one person to generate new speech in that person's voice. Some products need only minutes of clear audio, and cloned voices have been used in fraud, so recordings of your voice carry a real risk.
- VoiceprintA voiceprint is a stored model of a person's voice, built from measurable features of their speech and used to recognize or verify that person. Illinois law lists voiceprints among biometric identifiers, and other vendors call the same idea a voice template or speaker model.
Pages that use this term
- Speech to Text Privacy: Where Your Voice GoesTopic
- Meeting Transcription: How It Works and What to UseGuide
- Is Dictation HIPAA Compliant? What Makes It SafeGuide
- Recording Consent Laws: One-Party vs All-Party StatesGuide
- How to Transcribe an Interview: Audio to TextGuide
- Dictation for Lawyers: Privilege and ConfidentialityGuide
- Are AI transcription devices and voice recorders worth it?Question
- Can lawyers use AI notetakers on client calls?Question
- Can you transcribe a Discord call or voice chat?Question
- Can you transcribe a meeting without a bot joining?Question
- Can you transcribe a Teams meeting without recording it?Question
- Can you use AI transcription for research interviews?Question
- Do patients have to consent to AI scribes?Question
- How do you transcribe a meeting on a Mac?Question
- How do you transcribe an in-person meeting?Question
- Is it legal to use an AI notetaker without telling everyone?Question
- What is the best meeting transcription app for iPhone and Android?Question
- Which law applies when you record a call across state lines?Question
- Which states require all-party consent to record?Question
- Why do companies ban AI notetakers and dictation apps?Question
- One-party consentGlossary