Recording Law for Phone & Video Calls in Massachusetts

Massachusetts does not split its wiretap law by communication channel. The same all-party consent rule applies whether you're recording an in-person conversation, a phone call, or a video call on Zoom, FaceTime, Teams, or any other platform. The key statute, Massachusetts General Laws chapter 272, section 99, defines 'interception' as 'to secretly hear, secretly record, or aid another to secretly hear or secretly record the contents of any wire or oral communication through the use of any intercepting device by any person other than a person given prior authority by all parties to such communication.' The word 'secretly' is central: recording done without the knowledge and prior consent of every participant is treated as an unlawful interception under section 99. If everyone knows the call is being recorded and agrees before it starts, the recording is not secret and Massachusetts law does not require anyone's permission. But if even one person on the call doesn't know and hasn't agreed, recording that person's side of the conversation is a crime under section 99. This rule applies no matter where the conversation happens or what it's about.

Massachusetts courts apply the statute's secrecy-based test: if a recording is made openly and with the knowledge of all participating parties, it falls outside the statutory definition of 'interception' and no consent is technically required from anyone. This means you must have observable evidence that every participant knew the call was being recorded and had the opportunity to leave or object before it started. For example, if you announce at the beginning of a Zoom call that you're recording and everyone stays on the call, that can count as consent if everyone heard the announcement and continued participating. But if someone joins late or misses the announcement, you don't have their consent. The law does not require written consent, and having a record of the agreement is not required by statute. The operative question is whether the recording was done 'secretly' under the statute, not whether consent was given in a particular form. Commonwealth v. Curtatone v. Barstool Sports, Inc., 169 N.E.3d 480, 483 (Mass. 2021) confirms that openly disclosed recording with all parties aware falls outside the 'interception' definition.

If your device never captures audio, Massachusetts's wiretap law may not apply on its face because it protects 'oral communication' — speech captured without consent — and silent video with no audio channel falls outside the statute's scope. However, a 2024 Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision, Commonwealth v. Du, 495 Mass. 103 (2024), says if your recording device captures both video and audio at the same time and the audio is an unlawful interception, the video part can't be used either. The court rejected the idea that you could just mute the audio and still use the video. This means if your device might briefly capture audio even if you intend to record only video, you risk having both the audio and video suppressed in court. The statute does not provide a safe harbor for attempting to record only video; the safer approach is to obtain all-party consent before recording. A device that never engages its microphone at all is not clearly reached by Du's holding, which addressed capture-then-discard/mute scenarios, not hardware that structurally never records audio.

A federal appeals court has created a narrow, court-created First Amendment exception to Massachusetts's all-party consent rule. In Martin v. Rollins (Project Veritas Action Fund v. Rollins), 982 F.3d 813 (1st Cir. 2020), the First Circuit held that secretly recording on-duty police officers performing official duties in public spaces does not violate the First Amendment under Massachusetts law. This is a very specific situation: the officer must be on duty, acting in an official capacity, and the recording must occur in a public space. It does not apply to recording ordinary private citizens, even in public, or to situations where the officer isn't the focus of the recording. This exception is judge-made and limited to that exact fact pattern; it does not create a general public-official or public-space carve-out to the all-party consent rule.

Recording someone's side of a phone or video call without their consent in Massachusetts is a felony under chapter 272, section 99. The law also allows people whose conversations were recorded without consent to sue the recorder in civil court. This means you could face criminal charges and a lawsuit at the same time. The penalty and civil exposure are serious, so the safest practice is to get clear consent from everyone before you press record. The statute applies regardless of where the call takes place or what was discussed, but the operative question is whether the recording was done 'secretly' without prior authority from all parties.

Imagine you host a weekly team video call on Zoom to discuss project updates. At the start of the call, you say, 'This call is being recorded for note-taking purposes. If you don't want to be recorded, please leave the call now.' Everyone stays on the call. This announcement puts everyone on notice that recording is happening. Because everyone heard the announcement and chose to stay, you have their consent under Massachusetts law. If someone joins late and misses the announcement, you would need to tell them the call is being recorded and get their agreement before they participate. This approach keeps you within the law while still capturing the meeting for your records.

Massachusetts has no home or residence exception to its all-party consent rule. The statute's definition of 'oral communication' contains no reasonable-expectation-of-privacy requirement, and courts have refused to read such a limitation into the law. Commonwealth v. Hyde, 434 Mass. 594 (2001), squarely holds that the all-party consent rule applies even when the conversation occurs in a private home. There is no separate 'home' carve-out; the only operative question is whether the recording was done 'secretly' without prior authority from all parties present. Because Hyde's actual facts involved secretly recording police during a public traffic stop rather than a home setting, the extension of its no-privacy-expectation holding to mean 'the rule applies identically at home and in public, with no special loosening or tightening' is a reasoned inference from the statute's plain terms and Hyde's reasoning, not a squarely-on-point holding about in-home recording.