Recording Law for Phone & Video Calls in Kentucky

Kentucky follows a one-party consent rule for conversations and interactions, whether in person or by phone. That means you can legally record a conversation or interaction if you are one of the people in it. The rule comes from Kentucky’s eavesdropping law, which defines “eavesdrop” as overhearing or recording any part of a wire or oral communication of others without the consent of at least one (1) party thereto. Because you are a party to the conversation, your consent satisfies the one-party requirement. The law applies whether the interaction is in person, on your phone, on a laptop, or another device. There is no extra rule for video versus audio — the same one-party consent covers both.

If you record only video with no audio, Kentucky’s eavesdropping law does not apply. The eavesdropping statute 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), which is narrow: it applies only to recording a person's "sexual conduct, genitals, or the nipple of the female breast" without consent in places where privacy is expected (e.g., restroom, changing room) or for sexual gratification or distribution. That statute does not cover ordinary video recording of a conversation or an interaction. So filming someone’s face or actions without their knowledge is not a crime under Kentucky’s wiretap or voyeurism laws, as long as you don’t capture audio and the recording is not made for an excluded purpose.

You can record an on-duty police officer if you are directly speaking with them. Kentucky’s one-party consent law covers that conversation. But if you are not part of the exchange and simply film an officer interacting with someone else, Kentucky sits in the Sixth Circuit, which has not clearly decided whether there is a First Amendment right to record on-duty police in public. 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 and unsettled as applied to ordinary citizens filming police in public, lawyers should treat this as unsettled law when advising clients, even though the underlying eavesdropping statute itself does not bar the recording.

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 are inadvertent, non-divulged telephone party-line overhearing and common-carrier employees acting within the necessary scope of employment; neither exception is 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 or 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.

Kentucky’s eavesdropping statute is found in Kentucky Revised Statutes Chapter 526. The key definition, in KRS 526.010, states: “‘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.” The main offense, KRS 526.020 (Eavesdropping), makes this conduct a Class D felony. Kentucky’s exceptions are narrow and do not create a general public-place or home exception.

Imagine you’re on a work call with a coworker to discuss a project. You decide to record the conversation on your laptop to keep notes. Under Kentucky’s one-party consent rule, this is legal because you are part of the conversation. If the conversation were audio-only on your phone, the same rule applies. Silent video-only recording (no audio) of an incident is not restricted by KRS 526.010 or KRS 526.020, because the "eavesdrop" definition is limited to a "wire or oral communication." Kentucky’s video voyeurism law, KRS 531.100, does not apply to ordinary video recordings; it targets only recordings of a person's "sexual conduct, genitals, or the nipple of the female breast" made without consent in places where privacy is expected or for sexual gratification or distribution. If you try to secretly record a conversation between two other coworkers in the next room without either of their consent, that would not be covered by one-party consent because you are not a party to that conversation.