Yes, Colorado is a one-party consent state. If you are part of a conversation, whether in person, on the phone, or over an electronic channel, you can record it without telling anyone else on the line or in the room. The consent that makes the recording lawful is your own.
Two statutes work together to create this rule. One covers phone, telegraph, and electronic communications; the other covers in-person conversations. Both make recording illegal only when the person doing the recording is not a participant and has no participant’s permission.1Justia Law. Colorado Code 18-9-303 – Wiretapping Prohibited – Penalty2Justia Law. Colorado Code 18-9-304 – Eavesdropping Prohibited – Penalty
What One-Party Consent Actually Lets You Do
You can hit record on a call you’re on. You can record a meeting you’re sitting in. You can capture a video chat you joined. You don’t have to announce it, and you don’t have to ask. Your participation supplies the consent the statute requires.
What you cannot do is record a conversation you aren’t part of. Leaving a phone on a table to capture what coworkers say after you walk out, planting a device in someone else’s office, or intercepting calls between two other people are all situations where no participant has consented, and that’s where Colorado’s law turns criminal.
When Recording Becomes a Crime
Colorado splits illegal recording into two separate offenses, and the difference between them matters enormously for anyone on the wrong side of the line.
Eavesdropping Covers In-Person Conversations
You commit eavesdropping if you’re not visibly present during a conversation and you knowingly record it without at least one participant’s consent.2Justia Law. Colorado Code 18-9-304 – Eavesdropping Prohibited – Penalty Hidden microphones, baby monitors turned into surveillance tools, and recorders tucked into rooms you’ve left all fit this category.
Wiretapping Covers Phone and Electronic Communications
Wiretapping is the parallel offense for phones, telegraph lines, and electronic messaging. If you’re not a sender or intended receiver and you intercept or record the communication without a party’s consent, you’ve committed wiretapping.1Justia Law. Colorado Code 18-9-303 – Wiretapping Prohibited – Penalty Tapping a line, running interception software, or recording someone else’s call all qualify.
The Privacy Expectation Threshold
Both statutes assume the people being recorded had a reasonable expectation of privacy. A closed-door meeting, a home, a private phone call — those carry that expectation. A loud argument on a sidewalk or a shouted exchange in a packed restaurant generally does not. Recording audio in genuinely public settings is far less likely to trigger either statute.
Penalties: The Gap That Catches People Off Guard
Eavesdropping on an in-person conversation is a class 2 misdemeanor. The maximum is 120 days in jail and a $750 fine.2Justia Law. Colorado Code 18-9-304 – Eavesdropping Prohibited – Penalty3Justia Law. Colorado Code 18-1.3-501 – Misdemeanor Penalties
Wiretapping is a class 6 felony.1Justia Law. Colorado Code 18-9-303 – Wiretapping Prohibited – Penalty That’s a prison-level offense with a permanent felony record, not a county jail sentence. The single exception is wiretapping a cordless telephone, which drops to a class 2 misdemeanor. For every other phone or electronic interception, the charge is a felony. Someone who quietly installs monitoring software on a spouse’s phone, or who records a call they aren’t part of, is risking far more than a small fine.
Getting Sued for an Illegal Recording
Criminal charges aren’t the only exposure. Someone whose conversation was recorded illegally can also sue, though the state-law path is indirect.
No Colorado court has recognized a private right to sue directly under the wiretapping or eavesdropping statutes.4Colorado Judicial Branch. Elements of Liability 28:2 Intrusion The typical route is a common law invasion of privacy claim based on intrusion. The plaintiff has to show the recording was an intentional invasion of privacy that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person and that it caused actual harm. Damages can cover emotional distress, reputational injury, and economic loss.
Federal law is more generous to plaintiffs. Under the federal wiretap statute, anyone whose communication is unlawfully intercepted can sue and recover actual damages plus any profits the violator made, or statutory damages of at least $10,000, whichever is greater.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2520 – Recovery of Civil Damages Authorized That $10,000 floor makes the threat real even when concrete harm is hard to prove.
The Federal Rule Sitting on Top of Colorado’s
The federal Wiretap Act applies to every recording made in Colorado and sets the floor the state law builds on. Federal law also follows a one-party consent framework: recording is legal if you’re a party to the conversation or if one party has given prior consent.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2511 – Interception and Disclosure of Wire, Oral, or Electronic Communications Prohibited
One important caveat: even with one-party consent, the recording becomes illegal under federal law if it’s made for the purpose of committing a crime or a tort. A recording captured as part of a blackmail scheme loses its protection regardless of who was on the line. Federal wiretap penalties reach up to five years in prison.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2511 – Interception and Disclosure of Wire, Oral, or Electronic Communications Prohibited
Calls That Cross State Lines
Colorado’s one-party rule may not save you on an interstate call. Roughly a dozen states require every party to consent before a call can be recorded, and courts have reached conflicting conclusions about which state’s law controls when the parties are in different states.7Justia. Recording Phone Calls and Conversations Under the Law: 50-State Survey
The California Supreme Court, for example, has held that California’s all-party consent rule applied to a call between someone in California and someone in a one-party consent state.7Justia. Recording Phone Calls and Conversations Under the Law: 50-State Survey A Colorado resident could face liability under another state’s stricter law even though the recording was legal here. The FCC has no rules governing individuals recording their own calls.8Federal Communications Commission. Recording Telephone Conversations For interstate calls, the safe move is to follow the stricter state’s rule and get everyone’s consent on the record.
Recording Police in Public
Recording law enforcement officers doing their jobs in public is protected by the First Amendment. You can photograph or film anything in plain view from a place you have a legal right to be. Officers can order you to step back a reasonable distance if you’re physically interfering, but they cannot seize your phone without a warrant, and they may never lawfully delete your footage.
Colorado’s one-party rule doesn’t complicate this. A public encounter with police carries no reasonable expectation of privacy, so the wiretapping and eavesdropping statutes don’t apply to video shot in public. And if you’re speaking directly with an officer while recording, you’re a participant, which supplies the consent the audio statute requires anyway.
Recording at Work
The one-party rule applies at work the same way it applies anywhere else. You can legally record a conversation you’re part of without telling your coworkers or your boss.
Whether that recording costs you your job is a separate question. Colorado is an at-will employment state, and many employers have policies prohibiting workplace recording. Being fired for violating a no-recording policy is generally lawful, with one narrow exception. Under the National Labor Relations Act, employees have the right to engage in coordinated action to improve working conditions. The NLRB has found that recording evidence of unsafe conditions, harassment, or similar problems as part of concerted activity can be protected from retaliation, and a blanket no-recording policy can itself be unlawful if it chills that right.9National Labor Relations Board. Protected Concerted Activity
Video Without Audio Is a Different Analysis
Colorado’s wiretapping and eavesdropping statutes target the interception of communications, meaning spoken words. Video recording that captures no audio generally falls outside these statutes. Security cameras without microphones, dashcams recording only picture, and similar setups don’t trigger a one-party consent analysis because no communication is being intercepted.
That’s not a green light to film anywhere. Video of someone in a place where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy can still create liability under separate invasion of privacy and voyeurism laws. The one-party rule is specifically about capturing what people say.