Recording Law for Streamers & Creators in Indiana

Indiana is a one-party consent state for electronic communications. That means you can legally record phone calls, VoIP chats, or any other electronic communication (like a Discord call) as long as at least one person in the conversation agrees. Indiana’s wiretap law, found in Article 35-33.5 of the Indiana Code ("Interception of Telephonic or Telegraphic Communications," now covering electronic communication generally), makes it a Level 5 felony under Ind. Code § 35-33.5-5-5 to intentionally intercept an electronic communication without consent of a sender or receiver. But if you’re a participant in the call, you’re not intercepting it — you’re just recording your own conversation. Indiana Code § 35-31.5-2-176 defines "interception" as the intentional recording or acquisition of the contents of an electronic communication by a person other than a sender or receiver, without the consent of the sender or receiver, by means of any instrument, device, or equipment under this article, with five listed carve-outs for certain unencrypted or common-carrier radio transmissions. So if you’re on the call, you’re covered. Just be careful: this only applies to electronic communications transmitted by wire, radio, or an electromagnetic, photoelectronic, or photo-optical system — like phone calls or online chats. Face-to-face conversations don’t count.

Indiana has no law requiring consent to record ordinary, in-person conversations. The state’s wiretap statute only covers electronic communications, not face-to-face speech. Indiana Code § 35-31.5-2-110 defines an "electronic communication" as any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, oral communication, digital information, or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, a radio, or an electromagnetic, a photoelectronic, or a photo-optical system. An unassisted spoken conversation isn’t transmitted that way, so it falls outside the law. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press’s Indiana guide cites Whitt v. Town of New Carlisle, No. 20A-CT-2279, 2021 WL 2010143 (Ind. Ct. App. May 20, 2021), noting that the interception statute does not address in-person conversation recording; the decision is a non-precedential memorandum and carries only persuasive weight. So whether you’re streaming in a park, at a café, or on a city sidewalk, you can record people talking around you without asking permission. Indiana’s wiretap statute is a communication-medium test, not a privacy test, so the publicness of the location is irrelevant to the statute’s scope. Just don’t use special equipment to listen in — more on that below.

Recording video without audio is unrestricted in Indiana. The state’s wiretap law only applies to audio or data transmissions — not silent video. Indiana Code § 35-46-8.5-1 specifically targets covert or unattended cameras left on someone else’s private property, making it a Class A misdemeanor (or Level 6 felony with certain priors or if the actor is subject of a protective order) to record unattended footage on another person’s land without consent. But if you’re wearing a camera and actively recording, it’s not covered. There’s no law banning you from wearing a camera in public or even in your own home. No statute gives a stricter rule for recording inside one’s own home; if anything the opposite structure exists. So if you’re streaming silently, or just capturing video without audio, you’re in the clear. A person wearing a live/attended camera to record disputes, interactions, or police encounters — in public or on their own property — falls outside both statutes.

Even though Indiana doesn’t require consent for in-person conversations, using special listening devices to pick up speech from a distance could still be risky. Indiana’s wiretap statute is a communication-medium test, not a privacy test, so it never reaches ordinary in-person or public-place audio/video recording in the first place — it only governs interception of electronic communications between other parties. No Indiana appellate or supreme court decision was found squarely holding whether a reasonable-expectation-of-privacy exception applies to using directional or parabolic microphones in public, and the researcher’s own confidence on that specific point is explicitly lower than on the statutory text itself. Because of that uncertainty, it’s safest to avoid using devices that let you overhear conversations from far away. Stick to normal recording levels — if you have to strain to hear what’s being said, don’t record it. The law isn’t clear, so don’t rely on it.

Indiana has a law that makes it a Class C misdemeanor to stand within 25 feet of a police officer after being told to stop — Indiana Code § 35-44.1-2-14. But this law is currently blocked. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recognized a First Amendment right to record police performing their duties in public in ACLU of Illinois v. Alvarez, 679 F.3d 583 (7th Cir. 2012) — cited as controlling on this point in the Indiana cases below. Nicodemus v. City of South Bend, 137 F.4th 654 (7th Cir. 2025) rejected a facial First Amendment "unbridled discretion" challenge, holding the buffer law is a content-neutral, reasonable time/place/manner restriction; the challenger disclaimed the vagueness theory, so the court did not address it. Then, in Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press v. Rokita, No. 24-2927 (7th Cir. Aug. 5, 2025), the court affirmed a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the buffer law on Fourteenth Amendment vagueness grounds and remanded only on the scope of injunctive relief. As of the most recent reporting found (spring 2026), that remand was still pending in the Southern District of Indiana, so the buffer law remains judicially enjoined as to at least the RCFP plaintiffs while its ultimate fate is litigated — a person recording an on-duty officer from more than a purely arbitrary distance, in public, without physically interfering, is on solid First Amendment/Alvarez footing in the Seventh Circuit, but should be aware the 25-foot statute still nominally exists and its enforceability is in active, unsettled litigation. While the Rokita appeal was pending, Indiana enacted a second buffer law, Ind. Code § 35-44.1-2-15 (eff. July 1, 2025), which conditions a stop-approaching order on the officer's reasonable belief the person's presence will interfere with duties; it is codified adjacent to § -14, does not repeal it, and is NOT covered by the preliminary injunction against § -14 -- § 35-44.1-2-15 remains currently in effect.

Indiana has a squarely on-point ethics opinion, and it takes the strict, per-se-unethical position that ABA Formal Opinion 01-422 later abandoned nationally. In Indiana State Bar Association Legal Ethics Committee, Opinion No. 1 of 2000 (published in Res Gestae, March 2000), interpreting Indiana Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(c), the Committee was asked whether it violated Rule 8.4(c) for plaintiff's counsel in a medical malpractice case to surreptitiously tape-record a telephone conversation — without disclosure — with an attorney who represented the employer of a potential witness (the recording's existence was revealed only later, when the employer's counsel was called to testify at an ancillary hearing). The Committee held it did violate Rule 8.4(c), expressly regardless of the fact that the conduct is legal under Indiana law (the opinion itself states "it is not illegal in the state of Indiana to tape record another person without that person's knowledge"). Verified direct quotes from the primary-source PDF: "Although it is not illegal in the state of Indiana to tape record another person without that person's knowledge, it is unethical for an attorney to do this to another attorney in the context of a pending legal matter without informing him first." And: "Irrespective of the purpose for which the eventual recordings are to be used, it is dishonest and deceitful for an attorney to tape-record another attorney during a telephone conversation regarding legal matters without informing the other attorney of such... the Committee perceives such conduct to be fundamentally deceitful and dishonest." The Committee distinguished recording from note-taking or post-conversation memoranda ("the Committee believes that a tape recording is fundamentally different from other methods of memorializing the conversation"), reasoned that undisclosed recording undermines the candor attorneys need in off-the-record settlement/plea discussions, and invoked Indiana Supreme Court authority that lawyers are "expected to assiduously avoid deceptive or discourteous conduct" (citing Fire Insurance Exchange v. Bell, 643 N.E.2d 310, 312-13 (Ind. 1994)). The opinion expressly adopts the reasoning of Alaska Bar Association Opinion 78-1 and cites "accord ABA Comm. on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Formal Opinion 337 (1974)" — i.e., the old national per-se rule that ABA 01-422 (June 2001) later withdrew. Caveats: (1) Indiana's opinion issued March 2000, roughly 15 months before ABA 01-422 existed (June 2001), so it independently reached the same per-se-unethical conclusion Formal Opinion 337 had reached rather than responding to 01-422 — and no subsequent Indiana ethics opinion or disciplinary case revisiting this question post-2001 could be located. (2) The opinion's facts and holding concern an attorney recording another attorney in a pending legal matter; its "fundamentally deceitful and dishonest" reasoning is broad enough that Indiana authorities would very likely extend it to recording of clients or other lawyers generally, but no Indiana authority squarely extends it to recording of witnesses, adverse parties, or clients specifically. (3) This is a non-binding advisory ethics opinion ("The opinions are advisory only. The opinions have no force of law." — quote confirmed verbatim in the source), not a disciplinary case or court rule — it is the clearest and most direct Indiana authority found, but is advisory rather than binding precedent. Net effect: Indiana should be treated as a jurisdiction where a lawyer's undisclosed recording of another lawyer (and likely more broadly) is treated by state ethics authority as presumptively/per-se unethical professional misconduct under Rule 8.4(c), notwithstanding that such recording is legal under Indiana's one-party-consent wiretap law — i.e., Indiana has NOT adopted the more permissive ABA 01-422 standard.

Indiana has a comprehensive privacy law — the Indiana Consumer Data Protection Act (INCDPA) — that treats "biometric data" as a subcategory of "sensitive data" requiring opt-in consent. This is a materially weaker regime than Illinois BIPA. The INCDPA takes effect January 1, 2026, and applies only to controllers that during a calendar year either control or process personal data of at least 100,000 Indiana residents, or control or process personal data of at least 25,000 Indiana residents and derive more than 50% of gross revenue from the sale of personal data (Ind. Code § 24-15-1-1). Two things determine whether the INCDPA even reaches a voice-enrollment feature. (1) Definitional scope: IC 24-15-2-4 defines "biometric data" as data "generated by automatic measurements of an individual's biological characteristics, such as a fingerprint, a voiceprint, images of the retina or iris, or other unique biological patterns or characteristics," used "to identify a specific individual" — but explicitly excludes "a physical or digital photograph, or data generated from a physical or digital photograph" and "a video or audio recording, or data generated from a video or audio recording." So the raw captured audio itself is not "biometric data" — only a derived voiceprint/identifier generated from it counts. Once a system derives a voiceprint template to distinguish wearer from bystanders, that template is "biometric data," and IC 24-15-2-28 classifies "genetic or biometric data that is processed for the purpose of uniquely identifying" an individual as "sensitive data." (2) Consent requirement: if covered, IC 24-15-4-1 requires the controller to obtain the consumer's "consent" before processing sensitive data (i.e., before generating/using the voiceprint), and IC 24-15-2-7 defines "consent" as "a clear affirmative act" — "a written statement, including a statement written by electronic means, or any other unambiguous affirmative action" — signifying "freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous agreement." Unlike BIPA, there is no biometric-specific requirement of a signed written release, no mandated public retention/destruction schedule for biometric data specifically, and no per-violation statutory damages — general opt-in consent (which the INCDPA requires for all "sensitive data" categories alike) is the operative gate. Enforcement is AG-exclusive: IC 24-15-10-1 provides that "the attorney general has exclusive authority to enforce the provisions of this article." IC 24-15-10-3 requires a mandatory 30-day written cure notice before suit (independently confirmed this cure right is permanent/non-sunsetting, unusual among state privacy laws, per Hunton Andrews Kurth's analysis); if the controller cures within 30 days and gives a written statement to that effect, the AG "shall not initiate an action." IC 24-15-10-2 caps civil penalties at "seven thousand five hundred dollars ($7,500) for each violation," plus recovery of investigation/attorney's fees. IC 24-15-10-4: "Nothing in this article shall be construed as providing the basis for a private right of action for violations of this article or any other law." A company below the 100,000/25,000 thresholds processing Indiana residents' voiceprints is simply not covered by this statute at all.

Imagine you’re streaming a local festival in a public park. You’re wearing a camera and microphone, capturing the crowd and conversations around you. Since you’re recording in public and using normal audio levels, you don’t need anyone’s consent. Even if someone nearby is having a private conversation, Indiana law doesn’t require you to ask before recording. Indiana’s wiretap statute is a communication-medium test, not a privacy test, so the publicness of the location is irrelevant to the statute’s scope. But if you pull out a parabolic microphone to eavesdrop on a group across the plaza, that’s a different story — the law isn’t clear on that, so it’s better to avoid it. If police show up to manage a disturbance, you can keep recording as long as you stay out of their way. The 25-foot buffer law is preliminarily enjoined pending remand, so you’re protected by the First Amendment right to record police in public under Alvarez. Indiana has no separate, generally-applicable "eavesdropping" statute reaching ordinary face-to-face/in-person oral conversations the way many two-party-consent states do; recording an in-person dispute or an in-person exchange with a police officer with a wearable device is not "intercepting" an "electronic communication" between two other parties, so Article 33.5 does not appear to reach it at all.