Recording Law for Police & Civil Rights in Colorado

Colorado follows a one-party consent rule for audio recording, meaning at least one person involved in a conversation must consent to the recording. The law splits this into two statutes with identical penalties but different scopes. Under Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-9-303 (wiretapping), it is a class 2 misdemeanor for a person who is not a sender or intended receiver to knowingly overhear, read, take, copy, or record a telephone, telegraph, or electronic communication without the consent of either a sender or a receiver. Under Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-9-304 (eavesdropping), it is a class 2 misdemeanor for a person who is not visibly present during an in-person conversation or discussion to knowingly overhear or record it without the consent of at least one of the principal parties thereto. If you are a visibly present participant in an in-person conversation, you are not subject to the eavesdropping statute regardless of location. The statutes do not impose a general 'no notice required' permission; they require consent from at least one party to the specific communication being recorded.

Colorado law and federal case law protect your right to record police officers during public encounters. Under Colo. Rev. Stat. § 16-3-311, you have the right to lawfully record any incident involving a peace officer and to maintain custody and control of the recording and device. An officer may not seize a recording or device without your consent, a warrant, or a subpoena, except for a limited exigent-circumstance seizure of up to 72 hours pending a warrant. Separately, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has recognized a clearly established First Amendment right to film on-duty police performing their duties in public in Irizarry v. Yehia, 38 F.4th 1282 (10th Cir. 2022). This means you can record police stops, arrests, or other public interactions without violating the law, and officers cannot lawfully interfere with your recording under these authorities.

Colorado courts apply a reasonable-expectation-of-privacy framework to determine whether a conversation can be recorded without consent. This framework is imported from the definition of 'oral communication' in Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-9-301(8), which requires that the communication be uttered under circumstances justifying a belief it is not subject to interception. In People v. Lesslie, 939 P.2d 443 (Colo. App. 1996), the Colorado Court of Appeals held that conversations or disputes occurring in open public view—such as on a street, sidewalk, or in a store—generally carry no reasonable expectation of privacy, so recording them is not eavesdropping even without everyone’s consent. However, conversations in areas where people expect privacy, such as a bar restroom, can be protected. The key is whether a person could reasonably believe their words would not be overheard or recorded at the time and place of the conversation.

Colorado’s wiretapping and eavesdropping statutes focus on audio recordings of communications. The definition of 'electronic communication' in Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-9-301(3.3) requires a transmission 'by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectronic, or photooptical system that affects interstate or foreign commerce,' which does not cover silent, audio-free video capture of a scene. Similarly, the eavesdropping statute applies only to 'conversation or discussion,' which courts interpret as an oral/spoken exchange. Therefore, video-only recording without audio interception falls outside Colorado’s wiretap and eavesdropping statutes. However, the statutes do not explicitly exempt video-only recording, and no Colorado appellate case squarely holds that video alone is categorically exempt, so this remains a textual inference rather than a settled judicial holding.

If a law enforcement officer unlawfully interferes with your recording, you may have a civil claim. Under Colo. Rev. Stat. § 16-3-311, officers cannot seize your recording device or delete your footage without your consent, a warrant, or a subpoena, except for a limited exigent-circumstance seizure of up to 72 hours pending a warrant. Separately, Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-21-128 provides civil liability for destruction or unlawful seizure of recordings by a law enforcement officer, including damages of $500 for a destroyed recording and up to $15,000 in punitive damages. This is a civil remedy, not a criminal penalty against the officer.

Colorado’s wiretapping and eavesdropping statutes include narrowly drawn exceptions. Under Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-9-305(1), nothing in the wiretapping or eavesdropping statutes prevents a news agency or its employees from using accepted tools and equipment to report or investigate a public and newsworthy event. Additionally, § 18-9-305(1) permits the use of wiretapping or eavesdropping devices on a person’s own premises for security or business purposes if reasonable notice of the use is given to the public; this exception requires both a security or business purpose and public notice, so it would not cover a purely personal recording of a private dispute at home without posted notice. These exceptions do not broadly authorize recording beyond the one-party consent rule.

Colorado does not have a special home-specific exception beyond the general one-party consent rule. The only premises-based exception in Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-9-305(1) is a single sentence that permits the use of devices on a person’s own premises for security or business purposes with public notice and also exempts news agencies from the wiretapping and eavesdropping statutes when reporting on public and newsworthy events; neither provision covers a purely personal recording of a private dispute at home without posted notice. Separately, because the eavesdropping statute only criminalizes recording by someone not visibly present during an in-person conversation, a person who is themselves present in their own home during an incident is not committing eavesdropping regardless of location. This is the same participant/one-party-consent rule that applies everywhere in Colorado, not a home-specific carve-out.

Imagine you’re pulled over by a Denver police officer for a suspected traffic violation. You start recording the interaction with your phone. The officer asks you to stop recording, but you continue. Under Colorado law, you are allowed to record the stop because you are part of the conversation and the encounter is in public. The officer cannot legally seize your phone or delete the recording without your consent, a warrant, or a subpoena, except for a limited exigent-circumstance seizure of up to 72 hours pending a warrant. If the officer tries to take your phone anyway, you may have a legal claim under Colo. Rev. Stat. § 16-3-311 or § 13-21-128. This example shows how the law protects your right to document police interactions.

Colorado does not have a marital or home-specific exemption for recording private disputes. The eavesdropping statute only applies to a person who is not visibly present during an in-person conversation, so a visibly present participant is outside the statute’s scope regardless of location, including inside a home. The wiretapping statute applies to telephone, telegraph, or electronic communications with one-party consent from either a sender or receiver. The only premises-based exception in Colo. Rev. Stat. § 18-9-305(1) requires a security or business purpose and public notice, which would not cover a purely personal recording of a private dispute at home without posted notice. Colorado also has no spousal or interspousal recording exemption; the general wiretapping and eavesdropping statutes apply within the home and domestic context the same as elsewhere.