Recording Law for Police & Civil Rights in Arizona

Arizona follows a one-party consent rule for audio recordings. That means you can record any conversation you are part of without telling the other person or people involved. The law is found in Arizona Revised Statutes § 13-3005 (Interception of wire, electronic and oral communications; installation of pen register or trap and trace device; classification; exceptions), which criminalizes unlawful interception of wire, electronic, or oral communications, and the consent exemption is set out in § 13-3012(9). Under § 13-3012(9), it is not a crime to intercept a conversation if you are a party to it or are present during it. This applies whether the conversation happens in person or over the phone. The key point: your own presence during the conversation satisfies the consent requirement, so you do not need to inform the other person you are recording.

Recording on-duty police officers during a traffic stop, arrest, or public encounter is protected under the First Amendment and Arizona law. Arizona has no law that makes it illegal to record police in public simply because they are police. A 2022 law (HB2319) tried to ban recording police within 8 feet after a warning, but a federal district court in Arizona preliminarily enjoined it on September 9, 2022 in Arizona Broadcasters Ass'n v. Brnovich (Judge John Tuchi), and the Arizona Attorney General agreed to a permanent injunction in July 2023, making the law unenforceable. Courts in Arizona and the Ninth Circuit have recognized a right to record police performing official duties in public places.

Silent video recording without audio is not restricted under Arizona’s wiretap law because that statute only applies to the 'aural or other acquisition of the contents of any wire, electronic or oral communication.' The law that bans intercepting communications (§ 13-3005) only restricts audio capture, not images alone. Video recording is instead covered by a separate voyeurism law (§ 13-3019), which only applies if you secretly record someone in a private place like a restroom or bedroom where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy while nude, dressing/undressing, or engaged in sexual activity, or footage that captures genitalia/buttocks/female breast not otherwise visible to the public. Recording a public dispute or police interaction with a phone or camera is not covered by that law.

Arizona’s wiretap law does not contain a bright-line public/private exemption written into the statute text itself. Instead, it asks whether the speaker had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the conversation. This is written into the law at § 13-3001(8), which defines an "oral communication" as speech where the speaker shows an expectation the conversation won’t be intercepted and that expectation is objectively justified by the circumstances. A loud argument in the middle of a street is less likely to be private, but a hushed conversation in a crowded plaza might still carry a reasonable expectation of privacy. Courts look at the facts, not just the location.

Imagine you are pulled over by a police officer in Arizona. You start recording the interaction with your phone in plain view. The officer tells you to stop recording because you are too close. Under Arizona law, you do not have to stop. The 2022 law that made recording within 8 feet illegal was preliminarily enjoined by a federal judge in Arizona on September 9, 2022 in Arizona Broadcasters Ass'n v. Brnovich and permanently blocked by a settlement with the Attorney General in July 2023, so it cannot be enforced. Your recording is protected by the First Amendment and Arizona’s one-party consent rule, since you are part of the conversation and the recording is happening in public. The officer cannot lawfully order you to stop based on that law.

If you secretly record a conversation where the speaker had a reasonable expectation of privacy and you are not part of it, you could face felony charges under § 13-3005. Subsection A of § 13-3005 classifies this as a Class 5 felony, while subsection B (installation of a pen register or trap and trace device) is a Class 6 felony. There is also a civil penalty under § 12-731: you could be sued for actual damages, up to $10,000 in statutory damages per day, punitive damages, and attorney fees. Video voyeurism (§ 13-3019) is a separate crime with its own penalties if you secretly record someone in a private place.