Is It Legal to Record a Conversation in Kentucky?

Statute · Penalty: felony

KRS 526.010 (Definition of "eavesdrop") and KRS 526.020 (Eavesdropping), Kentucky Revised Statutes, Chapter 526 "Eavesdropping and Related Offenses." Related: KRS 526.070 (Exceptions); KRS 531.100 (Video voyeurism, Chapter 531 "Pornography") for a distinct, narrow non-audio offense.

In-person vs. phone & video calls

Kentucky's statute does not distinguish between in-person and phone/electronic communications. KRS 526.010 defines "eavesdrop" to cover any "wire or oral communication," and both categories require only "the consent of at least one (1) party thereto." A person who is a party to an in-person conversation or a phone call may lawfully record it without the other party's/parties' knowledge or consent (verified against official statute text pulled from apps.legislature.ky.gov, current through the 2026 Regular Session).

Recording in public

KRS Chapter 526 itself contains no explicit "public place" exception — its one-party-consent rule for oral/wire communications applies regardless of location, but as a practical matter public disputes/interactions where the wearer is a participant are covered by ordinary one-party consent (the wearer's own consent). For recording OTHER people's conversations the wearer is not part of, Kentucky courts apply a reasonable-expectation-of-privacy analysis under common-law invasion-of-privacy/intrusion-upon-seclusion doctrine (not KRS 526 itself) — e.g., Easterling v. Commonwealth, 606 S.W.3d 129 (Ky. 2019) (Ky. Sup. Ct.), addressing a related recording issue, held that a suspect had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a police-controlled interrogation room, and that neither of KRS 526.070's two narrow statutory exceptions (inadvertent, non-divulged party-line overhearing; or common-carrier employee acting within employment scope) applied on those facts. No Kentucky appellate case was found squarely adopting a general "no expectation of privacy in public" rule for ordinary bystander recording, but the structure of KRS 526.010 (requiring only one-party consent) means recording your own public disputes/interactions is not independently restricted by the statute.

Recording at home

No statutory carve-out exists in KRS Chapter 526 for recording inside one's own home versus elsewhere — the one-party-consent rule for "wire or oral communication" applies uniformly regardless of location. KRS 526.070's only two enumerated exceptions (inadvertent non-divulged telephone party-line overhearing; and common-carrier employees acting within the necessary scope of employment) are not location-based. That said, recording that occurs inside ANOTHER person's home (rather than in public) increases exposure under Kentucky's separate common-law tort of invasion of privacy/intrusion upon seclusion, which turns on reasonable-expectation-of-privacy — but that is tort doctrine outside KRS 526, not a statutory home carve-out. No Kentucky statute or case law was located granting the recorder heightened protection, or the recorded party heightened protection, specifically tied to "own home" status.

Recording the police

KRS Chapter 526 contains no specific statutory law-enforcement exception governing a citizen's recording of an on-duty police officer; the general one-party-consent audio rule governs, so a wearer who is a direct party to (or present and participating in) an encounter with police may lawfully audio-record it. Kentucky sits in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (KY, OH, MI, TN). The Sixth Circuit has NOT squarely recognized (nor rejected) a general First Amendment right of ordinary citizens to record on-duty police performing their public duties in public places — unlike several other circuits (e.g., 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 11th) that have recognized such a right. The closest recent Sixth Circuit authority, Hils v. Davis, 52 F.4th 997 (6th Cir. 2022), held that police officers themselves have no First Amendment right to record their own misconduct-investigation interviews conducted by a citizen complaint authority — a narrower, distinguishable context (non-public internal investigation, officer-as-recorder) rather than a citizen bystander recording police performing public duties in public. Because the Sixth Circuit right-to-record question remains open/undecided as applied to ordinary citizens filming police in public, this is an area of legal uncertainty in Kentucky — practitioners should not assume a clearly-established constitutional right exists in a Sixth-Circuit qualified-immunity posture, even though the underlying eavesdropping statute itself does not bar the recording.

Video-only capture (no audio)

Silent video-only recording (no audio) of an incident is NOT restricted by KRS 526.010/.020, because the "eavesdrop" definition is limited to a "wire or oral communication" — i.e., it is an audio-interception statute, not a general video-recording statute. Kentucky's only video-specific criminal statute is KRS 531.100 (Video voyeurism, in the Pornography chapter), which is narrow: it applies only to recording a person's "sexual conduct, genitals, or nipple of the female breast" without consent, typically in a place where privacy is expected (e.g., restroom, changing room) or for sexual gratification/distribution — it is not a general hidden-camera or public-recording statute and would not reach filming a dispute, an interaction with another person, or a police encounter. No Kentucky case law was found extending KRS 526 eavesdropping liability to video-only capture. Practical conclusion: capturing video alone (muted/no audio) of the described use cases faces no state wiretap/eavesdropping exposure; the audio track is what triggers KRS 526 analysis, and one-party consent (the wearer being a party to or present in the encounter) resolves that for most disputes/interactions, though NOT necessarily for audio incidentally picked up of two other people's private conversation the wearer isn't part of and hasn't been consented to by anyone.

What counts as a “private” conversation →

Kentucky's eavesdropping statute is unusual among one-party-consent states in that its operative definition contains NO express reasonable-expectation-of-privacy (REP) qualifier at all. KRS 526.010 defines the single relevant term as: '"Eavesdrop" means to overhear, record, amplify or transmit any part of a wire or oral communication of others without the consent of at least one (1) party thereto by means of any electronic, mechanical or other device.' (Independently re-verified verbatim by pulling the official PDF directly from apps.legislature.ky.gov; text unchanged since original enactment, 1974 Ky. Acts ch. 406, sec. 226, effective January 1, 1975.) Unlike the federal Title III model (and many states that copy it), which defines "oral communication" as one "uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation," Chapter 526 nowhere separately defines "oral communication" or "wire communication" with any privacy-expectation modifier -- "eavesdrop" is simply built around "any part of a wire or oral communication of others" plus the one-party-consent clause. I independently pulled and read all seven substantive sections of Chapter 526 (526.010, .020, .030, .040, .050, .060, .070, .080) directly from the legislature's site; no section defines "oral communication" independently or imports an REP test into the definition. So on the bare statutory text, there is no textual "private conversation" gate distinct from the one-party-consent clause itself -- the consent clause IS the only qualifier in the definition. That said, two non-binding-but-relevant sources complicate this: (1) The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press's Kentucky guide reports that Kentucky's official penal-code commentary states -- specifically as commentary to KRS 526.020 (the "Eavesdropping" offense provision), NOT to KRS 526.010 as an earlier draft of this analysis mis-cited; I independently pulled RCFP's raw page text and confirmed its own citation reads "Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 526.020, Commentary" -- that the provision targets "private oral communications," which the commentary describes as ones that "cannot be overheard by the ordinary ear," giving the illustration that "a conversation which is loud enough to be heard through the wall or through the heating system without the use of any device is not protected." This commentary is contemporaneous Kentucky Crime Commission/LRC-style legislative commentary to the 1974 Penal Code (of which Chapter 526 is part, per its own "1974 Ky. Acts ch. 406" enactment history), not itself enacted statutory text. RCFP's page does not itself state the "1974" date; that date comes from the statute's own official history line, independently confirmed. I was not able to independently pull the primary bound commentary volume itself (not hosted on the free apps.legislature.ky.gov statute pages, which show only enacted text + history notes) -- this rests on RCFP's secondary characterization and should be verified against the actual bound commentary volume before being treated as citation-quality, and its correct section attachment is 526.020, not 526.010. (2) In Easterling v. Commonwealth, 606 S.W.3d 129 (Ky. 2019) (pincite not independently reconfirmable from free sources, though case identity/holding are confirmed via multiple independent secondary summaries), the trial court reasoned that "KRS 526.020 implies that a person must have an expectation of privacy, making it inapplicable to events at a police station" (i.e., no REP in a police-controlled interrogation room). On appeal, the Kentucky Supreme Court did NOT adopt or resolve that statutory-interpretation question as a matter of construing KRS 526.020's text. It affirmed on two independent grounds: (a) citing Beach v. Commonwealth, 927 S.W.2d 826 (Ky. 1996), that "KRS 526.020 does not contain a provision, either explicitly or implicitly, that requires exclusion of evidence obtained through its violation" -- i.e., even assuming a statutory violation, the exclusionary rule doesn't reach purely statutory (non-constitutional) violations, so suppression failed regardless of whether an REP gate exists in the statute; and (b) separately, as an issue of first impression, that Easterling had no Fourth Amendment reasonable expectation of privacy in a police interrogation room under the Katz test -- a distinct constitutional-law holding, not a construction of KRS 526.020's own text. Net conclusion, reinforced rather than undermined by this closer look at Easterling: no Kentucky appellate or Supreme Court decision has squarely and bindingly held that KRS 526.010's "oral communication" language carries an implicit REP/"private conversation" threshold -- that reading appears only in (a) non-binding penal-code commentary attached to 526.020 (not 526.010) and (b) one trial court's unreviewed statutory reasoning that the Supreme Court bypassed via an independent exclusionary-rule ground and a separate Fourth Amendment analysis. The statute's plain enacted text is broad and threshold-free. On the statute's plain text there is effectively no separate "private communication" gate in Kentucky -- KRS 526.010 defines "eavesdrop" as intercepting "any part of a wire or oral communication of others without the consent of at least one (1) party thereto," so the one-party-consent clause itself is the only qualifier, meaning a wearer who is a party to (or has one consenting party within) any wire or oral communication may record it regardless of whether the conversation was loud, public, or otherwise unlikely to be private -- though non-binding penal-code commentary (attached to KRS 526.020) and one unreviewed trial-court ruling suggest a court could still import an unwritten "cannot be overheard by the ordinary ear" limitation that would exempt loud/public exchanges from the statute's coverage entirely, a reading no controlling Kentucky appellate decision has yet adopted. This is confirmed consistent with the existing row's "one_party" consent_type classification.

Biometric / voiceprint law →

Kentucky Consumer Data Protection Act (KCDPA) — a comprehensive consumer-privacy statute with a biometric/"sensitive data" provision, NOT a dedicated BIPA-style biometric statute. Kentucky has no BIPA/CUBI-style dedicated biometric-privacy law. Dedicated biometric bills were introduced but died in committee in three prior sessions: SB278 (2021 RS) — "create a civil cause of action for violations" of a proposed retention/destruction/consent scheme, died in Senate Economic Development, Tourism & Labor Committee after 2/25/21 referral; HB626 (2022 RS) — consent/storage/destruction requirements with civil penalties, died after being sent to Committee on Committees 2/28/22; HB483 (2023 RS), titled the "Biometric Identifiers Privacy Act," would have required written retention policies and (per a floor amendment attempt to strip it) originally included a private cause of action — it was recommitted to Appropriations & Revenue on 3/16/23 and never received a floor vote. None of the three passed. Only the comprehensive KCDPA (2024 Ky. Acts ch. 72, as amended by 2025 Ky. Acts ch. 13) became law, effective January 1, 2026. — CONFIRMED against the official statute text, with one materially relevant addition the original write-up omitted. KRS 367.3611(3) defines "biometric data" in full as: "data generated by automatic measurements of an individual's biological characteristics, such as a fingerprint, voiceprint, eye retinas, irises, or other unique biological patterns or characteristics that are used to identify a specific individual. Biometric data does not include a physical or digital photograph, a video or audio recording, or data generated therefrom, unless that data is generated to identify a specific individual or information collected, used, or stored for health care treatment, payment, or operations under HIPAA." The second sentence is the important addition: a plain audio or video recording is categorically EXCLUDED from "biometric data" under Kentucky law UNLESS it is generated to identify a specific individual. This is squarely on-point for live.law's core product (audio/video capture from smartglasses): ambient/bystander audio or video that is not being processed to identify a specific person is not "biometric data" at all under KCDPA and never reaches the sensitive-data consent gate, regardless of scale thresholds. Only when the processing purpose is to uniquely identify a specific natural person (live.law's voice-enrollment/wearer-identification use case) does it become "biometric data," and per KRS 367.3611(28)(b) ("sensitive data" includes "the processing of genetic or biometric data that is processed for the purpose of uniquely identifying a specific natural person") that triggers KRS 367.3617(1)(e): "Not process sensitive data concerning a consumer without obtaining the consumer's consent...". "Consent" is defined at KRS 367.3611(6), quoted in full: "a clear affirmative act signifying a consumer's freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous agreement to process personal data relating to the consumer. Consent may include a written statement, written by electronic means or any other unambiguous affirmative action" — an opt-in standard, but with no BIPA-style "written release" formality requirement. Beyond the consent gate: KRS 367.3617(1)(a) data minimization ("adequate, relevant, and reasonably necessary"), (1)(c) reasonable security safeguards, and (3) a "reasonably accessible, clear, and meaningful" privacy notice. No KCDPA-specific mandate exists for a publicly posted biometric retention/destruction schedule (unlike BIPA's 740 ILCS 14/15(a)), and no statutory retention-duration cap tied to biometric data specifically. Applicability is scale-gated per KRS 367.3613(1), confirmed verbatim: applies to entities conducting business in or targeting KY residents that during a calendar year control/process personal data of at least "(a) One hundred thousand (100,000) consumers; or (b) Twenty-five thousand (25,000) consumers and derive over fifty percent (50%) of gross revenue from the sale of personal data" — a small/early-stage live.law deployment could fall outside KCDPA's scope entirely, a distinct question from whether the substantive duty exists once in scope.

Attorney ethics (ABA Formal Op. 01-422) →

Kentucky's bar ethics committee addressed this head-on in 1984 — seventeen years before ABA Formal Opinion 01-422 abandoned the old per-se rule — and expressly adopted the reasoning of the withdrawn ABA Formal Opinion 337. In KBA E-279, Question 1 ("May an attorney secretly record conversations with client, attorneys, judges, and the public... where said persons are not witnesses in a criminal proceeding in which the attorney is employed as defense counsel?") was answered "No," on the ground that "the conduct prescribed in DR 1-102(A)(4), i.e., conduct which involves dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation in the view of the Committee clearly encompasses the making of recordings without the consent of all parties." The opinion holds: "where the lawyer is not representing a client in a criminal case and is not conversing with a witness in that proceeding, then the recording of the conversation without the consent of all parties would be deemed a breach of the Canons of Ethics." DR 1-102(A)(4) is the direct textual predecessor of current SCR 3.130(8.4)(c) ("conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation"). The opinion carves out one narrow, fact-specific exception (Question 2, answered "Yes"): a criminal defense attorney may secretly record conversations with witnesses in that same criminal proceeding, resting on Sixth/Fourteenth Amendment zealous-representation concerns, the fact that prosecutors/law enforcement may lawfully do the same under federal wiretap law (18 U.S.C. § 2511(d), Title III; United States v. White, 401 U.S. 745 (1971)), and the evidentiary value of a recording in a later swearing contest with a hostile witness. E-279 expressly declines to extend this exception to clients, other lawyers, or civil matters, quoting with approval the reasoning of the New York City Bar's Opinion No. 80-95 that "secret recordings of conversations with other lawyers or with clients is improper in any context, criminal or civil. Moreover, we continue to view as unethical secret recordings of witnesses in civil or commercial matters" — a position KBA's own Answer 1 independently reaches for all non-criminal-defense-witness scenarios. KBA E-289 (Sept. 1984) extends this to the client-recording context. Question 1 ("May an attorney suggest that a client secretly record phone conversations... regarding a civil matter?") is answered "No." Question 2 asks whether a lawyer may instead simply advise a client on the law's legality and allow the client to proceed; the answer is a "Qualified yes," echoing 1976 New York State Bar Opinion 455's principle that "where the lawyer does no more than advise his client concerning the legal character and consequences of the act, there can be no professional impropriety" — though E-289 clarifies the lawyer's advice may go beyond reciting the bare statute to include weighing the fairness/social consequences of the specific recording, not merely "restating the law." Only E-289 — not E-279 — expressly notes that undisclosed one-party-consent recording is independently *legal* under Kentucky's own eavesdropping statute: "The Kentucky Eavesdropping Statute does not prohibit recording of wire or oral communications of others with consent of at least one party thereto. KRS 526.010 (1974)." (E-279's own legal backdrop is federal wiretap law, not KRS 526.010.) Both opinions nonetheless hold that this legality does not make the conduct ethical outside the narrow carve-out — the functional opposite of 01-422's framework, which treats a jurisdiction's legality determination as the threshold condition for permissibility. So Kentucky's stated (if dated) position rejects 01-422's more permissive "not per se unethical" standard in favor of something close to the old Formal Opinion 337 presumptively-improper rule, subject only to the narrow criminal-defense-witness exception. Caveat for the dataset: these opinions are 40+ years old, were decided under the 1971-90 Code of Professional Responsibility (each carries KBA's own disclaimer to "consult the current version of the Rules of Professional Conduct... before relying on this opinion"), and KBA has issued no subsequent opinion confirming, revisiting, or reconciling this position with ABA 01-422 or the modern SCR 3.130(8.4)(c) framework. They remain the only on-point, non-withdrawn authority on KBA's own opinions list (confirmed: no other listed KBA opinion contains "secretly," "record," "wiretap," or "eavesdrop"), so they are the best available evidence of Kentucky's stated position, but real uncertainty remains whether the KBA, if asked today, would apply them unmodified.

Can you personally sue over a violation?

Not directly under this statute — enforcement here is criminal/regulatory, not a private lawsuit.

Can I record as a guest in someone else's home?

It depends on the specifics of the moment — Kentucky doesn't give a guest the same clear leeway a homeowner gets, so this is closer to a case-by-case call than a fixed yes or no.

What if I'm on a call with someone in another state?

Which state's rule actually governs an interstate call touching Kentucky isn't clearly settled. The safest approach is still to follow whichever state — yours or theirs — requires more from you.

This is a newer, less-settled corner of the law — our own research is still being refined here, so treat this as a starting point, not a final answer.

If it's legal to record, can it still be used against me later?

Usually, yes. Being legal to record and being protected from a future court case are two different questions — a legal recording can generally still be obtained by the other side later. Recording your own conversation with your own attorney is a separate, more protected situation, but almost everything else — a landlord, a police officer, a family member — isn't automatically off-limits to opposing counsel just because it was legal to capture.

This is a newer, less-settled corner of the law — our own research is still being refined here, so treat this as a starting point, not a final answer.