Recording Law for Recording at Home in Georgia

Georgia follows a one-party consent rule for audio recordings: you can record a conversation if you are part of it or have at least one participant’s consent, regardless of whether the conversation occurs in person or over the phone. This rule is set out in O.C.G.A. § 16-11-66(a), which applies uniformly to wire, oral, or electronic communications. However, Georgia’s law draws a sharp distinction between audio and video recording when the activity occurs in a private place. Under O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(2), video or photographic recording of another person’s activities in a private place and out of public view requires the consent of all persons observed. This means that while you can record audio in a private place with one-party consent, video recording of activities in the same setting generally requires everyone present to agree.

Georgia provides a limited exception to the all-party video consent rule for certain individuals recording activities on their own property. O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(2)(C) allows a resident, owner, security-system subscriber, or family member to use a device to observe, photograph, or record activities occurring within the curtilage of their own home for security purposes without obtaining the consent of persons observed. This exception does not extend to recording in someone else’s home, a hotel room, a rented space, or any other private place where the wearer lacks the qualifying status tied to that specific home. The exception’s validity was unsettled for nearly a decade after the Georgia Supreme Court held in Rutter v. Rutter, 294 Ga. 1, 749 S.E.2d 657 (2013), that two conflicting 2000 enactments had left no valid curtilage exception; the legislature re-enacted the exception in 2022 via SB 539, effective July 1, 2022.

Even where the home security exception applies to video recording, Georgia still regulates clandestine recording of private conversations. O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(1) makes it unlawful to intercept or record a private conversation in a private place without the consent of at least one party to the conversation. This rule applies regardless of whether the recording is audio-only, video-only, or audiovisual, and it is not limited to the home context. If you record a private conversation without at least one participant’s consent, you risk felony prosecution under O.C.G.A. § 16-11-69 and potential civil liability for invasion of privacy.

Violating Georgia’s wiretapping and surveillance laws is a felony under O.C.G.A. § 16-11-69, punishable by imprisonment for one to five years, a fine of up to $10,000, or both. The statute applies to clandestine interception of private conversations and to non-consensual video or photographic recording of activities in a private place and out of public view. In addition to criminal penalties, Georgia recognizes a common-law tort of invasion of privacy and allows civil suits by aggrieved persons for damages arising from unlawful recording. These consequences attach only when the recording occurs in a location where the person recorded had a reasonable expectation of privacy, as defined in O.C.G.A. § 16-11-60(3).

Imagine you’re hosting a dinner at your home when a heated argument breaks out between two guests. You want to record the scene to share with others later. Under Georgia law, you can record the video of the argument without consent because you are using the device for security purposes and the activity occurs in your own home, satisfying the curtilage exception in O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(2)(C). However, if the argument includes private conversations, you must obtain at least one person’s consent to record the audio under O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(1) and § 16-11-66(a), or you could face felony charges and civil liability. Recording the audio without consent remains unlawful even if the video is lawful.

Georgia’s wiretapping and surveillance statutes only apply when the recording occurs in a private place where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy. O.C.G.A. § 16-11-60(3) defines a private place as a place where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. Georgia courts apply this statutory definition directly; for example, in Gary v. State, 338 Ga. App. 403, 790 S.E.2d 150 (Ga. Ct. App. 2016), the court held that a publicly accessible grocery store aisle is not a private place, reversing a conviction under O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(2). This means public places like sidewalks, parking lots, and most publicly accessible commercial spaces fall outside Georgia’s wiretapping and surveillance laws, and recording there does not require anyone’s consent under those statutes.

Georgia has no statute that restricts citizens from recording on-duty police officers performing their duties in public view. Because O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62 only reaches conduct occurring in a private place and out of public view, recording police in public does not violate that statute. Moreover, binding Eleventh Circuit precedent recognizes a First Amendment right to record police officers performing their duties in public, subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. In Smith v. City of Cumming, 212 F.3d 1332 (11th Cir. 2000), the court held that the First Amendment protects the right to gather information about what public officials do on public property, including police conduct. However, the Eleventh Circuit later narrowed the practical enforceability of this right in Crocker v. Beatty, 995 F.3d 1232 (11th Cir. 2021), where it granted qualified immunity to an officer who seized a bystander’s phone after he photographed a crash scene, finding that Smith’s right-to-record holding came without sufficient explanation to give officers fair warning of its contours. As a result, while the abstract First Amendment right to record police in public exists, individual officers who interfere with or retaliate against recording may frequently escape civil damages liability via qualified immunity.