Under Georgia’s one-party consent law, you can legally record a conversation as long as you are a participant or at least one participant has agreed to the recording. The rule sits in two statutes: O.C.G.A. 16-11-62 makes it a felony to secretly capture someone else’s private conversation, and O.C.G.A. 16-11-66 carves out the exception that protects recordings made by a party to the conversation.1Justia. Georgia Code 16-11-622Justia. Georgia Code 16-11-66 Get it wrong, and you’re looking at one to five years in prison.
What “One-Party Consent” Actually Means Here
If you’re on the phone call, in the room, or part of the video meeting, you can record it. You don’t have to tell the other people. You don’t need their permission. Your own presence is the consent the statute requires.
You can also record a conversation you’re not part of if someone who is part of it agrees to let you record. A friend can consent to you recording their call with a third party, for instance.
What you cannot do is capture a conversation between two other people when none of them knows or agrees. Planting a recorder in an empty room, hiding a device in a car you won’t be in, or tapping someone else’s phone line falls squarely inside O.C.G.A. 16-11-62’s prohibition on eavesdropping.1Justia. Georgia Code 16-11-62
The statute only reaches private communications. O.C.G.A. 16-11-60 defines a private place as somewhere a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy.3Justia. Georgia Code 16-11-60 A phone call from your living room counts. A conversation shouted across a restaurant patio probably doesn’t. The statute also covers “wire, oral, or electronic communication,” so video calls, voicemail, and direct messages fall under the same rule as a phone call.1Justia. Georgia Code 16-11-62
The Purpose Behind the Recording Matters
Being a party to a conversation is not a blanket license. Federal wiretap law, which runs alongside Georgia’s rules, says one-party consent applies “unless such communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act.”4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2511 Recording a business partner so you can later blackmail them, or capturing a call in furtherance of fraud, strips away the consent defense. Your intent when you hit record is part of what makes the recording legal or illegal.
Calls That Cross State Lines
Federal law also follows a one-party consent standard, so a recording you make in Georgia is fine under federal law as long as no criminal or tortious purpose is involved.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2511 Interstate calls are the trap. If you’re in Georgia recording a call with someone in California, Florida, or Pennsylvania (all-party consent states), you can be compliant here and still violate their law. When a call crosses a state line, either get everyone’s consent or check every state involved.
Recording at Work
The one-party rule applies on the job. An employee who is part of a conversation can record a coworker or supervisor without telling them. Employers can monitor calls when a company representative is on the line or has one party’s consent. Phone and internet providers get a separate federal carve-out for interceptions their employees make in the ordinary course of delivering service or protecting company property.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2511
One workplace boundary worth flagging: in June 2025, the NLRB’s Acting General Counsel issued a memo declaring that secretly recording collective bargaining sessions is a per se violation of the National Labor Relations Act, and directed regional offices to issue complaints whenever an investigation reveals a party did so.5National Labor Relations Board. NLRB Memo on Surreptitious Recording of Collective-Bargaining Georgia’s consent statute doesn’t shield you from that labor-law consequence.
Filming Police in Public
p>The Eleventh Circuit, which covers Georgia, recognizes a First Amendment right to record police officers performing their duties in public. On a sidewalk, a street, or another public space, you can film an encounter, and because Georgia allows one-party recording, you can capture the audio too as long as you are present at or involved in the interaction.
You cannot physically interfere. Standing too close, ignoring lawful orders, or inserting yourself into an active scene can bring an obstruction charge even if your only goal was to document what happened.
Zoom, Teams, and AI Meeting Assistants
Because the statute reaches electronic communication, recording a video call or saving someone’s voicemail requires the same one-party consent as a phone call.6Justia. Georgia Code 16-11-62 Public social media posts generally carry no expectation of privacy; private messages can.
AI note-takers that auto-join and transcribe meetings don’t change the consent rule; a bot recording on your behalf carries the same obligations you would. A platform’s “this meeting is being recorded” banner can serve as notice, but whether it amounts to valid consent depends on whether participants had a real chance to object before recording started. Safer practice is to flag the recording in the meeting invitation, use the platform’s click-to-accept prompt, and say so out loud at the top of the call. If the tool retains transcripts for AI training or analytics, tell participants that too.
Getting a Recording into Evidence
A recording that satisfies one-party consent still has to clear the usual evidentiary hurdles. Georgia judges evaluate authenticity, relevance, and whether the recording was made for a lawful purpose, and they can exclude it if editing distorts the conversation or the context misleads.
Divorce and custody cases are where private recordings surface most often. A recording is admissible only if the person who made it was a party to the conversation or had proper consent. A hidden-device recording made in a room the recorder wasn’t in can be excluded and can expose the person who made it to felony charges under O.C.G.A. 16-11-69.7Justia. Georgia Code 16-11-69 Family court judges look closely at how a recording was obtained, and an unlawful one can damage your credibility even when the content would have helped.
What Illegal Recording Costs
O.C.G.A. 16-11-69 makes any violation of the recording statutes a felony punishable by one to five years in prison.7Justia. Georgia Code 16-11-69 That puts illegal recording on the same tier as many property crimes and mid-level drug offenses.
The person you recorded can also sue. Georgia recognizes invasion-of-privacy claims tied to unauthorized recordings, and the federal Wiretap Act allows a civil action within two years of the date the victim had a reasonable opportunity to discover the interception.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2520
Professional consequences follow. An attorney who records in violation of the statute risks discipline from the State Bar of Georgia, up to suspension or disbarment. A felony conviction alone is enough to disqualify a person from many Georgia professional licenses, and journalists, investigators, and employers who cross the line face reputational damage on top of the legal exposure.