Recording Law for Video-Only Recording in Georgia

Georgia draws a sharp line between audio recording and silent video recording. For audio, the state follows a one-party consent rule: you can legally record a conversation as long as you are part of it. This is set out in O.C.G.A. § 16-11-66(a), which provides that nothing in the eavesdropping statute prohibits a person from intercepting a wire, oral, or electronic communication where the person is a party to the communication or one of the parties has given prior consent. But for silent video recording of activities, the rule is stricter. If you record someone’s activities in a private place where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, Georgia law requires the consent of all people being recorded. This comes from O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(2), which bars using a device to observe, photograph, or record the activities of another in a private place and out of public view without the consent of all persons observed. The law defines a "private place" as one where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, a definition found in O.C.G.A. § 16-11-60(3). So, recording video in a home, a back office, or a fenced yard without everyone’s consent can be a crime.

Georgia’s "private place" test is built into the statute itself, not a free-floating multi-factor balancing test. O.C.G.A. § 16-11-60(3) defines a "private place" as "a place where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy," and this defined term is the gatekeeper for both halves of the eavesdropping statute. Courts apply this codified standard directly: they ask whether the physical place carries a reasonable expectation of privacy and whether the activity is "out of public view," not whether the conversation was hushed or the subject matter sensitive. For example, a grocery store aisle is not a private place, but a restroom stall or a private office is. A Georgia appeals court made this clear in Gary v. State, 338 Ga. App. 403, 790 S.E.2d 150 (2016), where it overturned a conviction because the recording happened in a publicly accessible grocery store. The court held that § 16-11-62(2) does not apply to activities in a public place, reversing a conviction where the victim was filmed while walking and shopping in a publicly accessible grocery store. So, recording in public spaces like streets, parks, or stores is not restricted by this law.

Georgia has a limited exception for recording in your own home. O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(2)(C) allows a resident, owner, or family member to use a device to observe, photograph, or record activities occurring within the curtilage of their own home without the consent of others present. This exception has a contested legislative history: it was originally enacted in the 2000 session via two separate, conflicting bills amending the same code section (House Bill 1576 added the curtilage exception; Senate Bill 316, enacted afterward the same session, amended § 16-11-62 without including it). The Georgia Supreme Court held in Rutter v. Rutter, 294 Ga. 1, 749 S.E.2d 657 (2013), that the two 2000 acts were in "irreconcilable conflict" and that the curtilage exception did not survive — so this curtilage exception is long-standing codified text, confirmed present in the pre-2022 (2019) Georgia Code in the same (A)-(D) sequence it occupies today -- it was NOT added or re-added by the 2022 SB 539 amendment. SB 539 instead added a new paragraph (7) (county-board-of-health patient recording), unrelated to curtilage or residential security. However, this exception only applies to your own home and only for activity recording—not for recording private conversations. If you record a conversation in your home, the one-party consent rule still applies, but you do not need everyone’s consent to record activities happening in your home or on your property.

Recording someone’s activities in a private place without their consent in Georgia is a felony under O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62. The penalty is set out in O.C.G.A. § 16-11-69, which provides that a violation is punishable by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than five years, a fine not to exceed $10,000, or both. This penalty applies to violations of § 16-11-62, which governs clandestine recording of private conversations and non-consensual recording of activities in private places, while § 16-11-66 governs one-party audio recording. Violations can also lead to civil lawsuits for invasion of privacy under Georgia common law, including claims based on the tort recognized in Pavesich v. New England Life Ins. Co., 122 Ga. 190 (1905).

Georgia has no statutory carve-out restricting citizens' ability to record on-duty police in public. Because § 16-11-62 only reaches conduct in a "private place... out of public view," recording police performing duties in public view falls outside the statute altogether. On top of that statutory gap, there is controlling Eleventh Circuit precedent recognizing a First Amendment right to record police: Smith v. City of Cumming, 212 F.3d 1332 (11th Cir. 2000) — arising from Forsyth County, Georgia — held that "[t]he First Amendment protects the right to gather information about what public officials do on public property, and specifically, a right to record matters of public interest," including police conduct, subject to reasonable time/place/manner restrictions. Georgia is within the Eleventh Circuit (along with Florida and Alabama), so Smith is binding circuit precedent for Georgia. However, Crocker v. Beatty, 995 F.3d 1232 (11th Cir. 2021), narrows the practical force of Smith: the Eleventh Circuit held that a deputy who seized a bystander's phone after he photographed a crash scene was entitled to qualified immunity, because Smith's right-to-record holding "came without much explanation" and did not give officers fair warning of the right's precise contours. So while Smith establishes the abstract First Amendment right to record police in public, individual officers who interfere with or retaliate against recording frequently escape civil damages liability via qualified immunity.

Imagine you are at a public park and see two people arguing. You start recording the argument with your phone. Since this is happening in a public place, Georgia law does not restrict your recording. Now imagine the same argument is happening in a neighbor’s fenced backyard. If you record it there without everyone’s consent, you could be breaking the law. The backyard is a private place where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and Georgia requires all parties’ consent for video recording of activities there. If you record the argument in your own home’s curtilage, the law allows it without consent for activity recording—not for conversations—provided your status as resident, owner, subscriber, or family member of the home is affirmatively established.