Recording Law for Family Law in Missouri

Missouri’s wiretap statute treats electronic communications differently from in-person conversations. If you are a party to a phone call or other electronic communication, you may legally record it without the other person’s knowledge. The law expressly permits a person not acting under law to intercept a wire communication when that person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent. This exception applies regardless of where the conversation occurs or who the other parties are.

Missouri’s wiretap law criminalizes intercepting an oral communication (an in-person conversation) only when the device used transmits communications by radio or interferes with the transmission of the communication. Because the statute limits the oral-communication offense to radio-transmitting or interfering devices, using an ordinary non-radio recorder to secretly tape an in-person conversation is not clearly illegal under Missouri’s wiretap statute. The law’s definition of interception expressly focuses on the aural acquisition of the contents of any wire communication, and the oral-communication provision does not reach ordinary local-storage recorders.

Missouri’s wiretap law restricts only the aural (audio) acquisition of a communication’s contents. A silent video recording with no audio component does not constitute an interception of a wire or oral communication under the statute and is not restricted. The only related restriction is found in Missouri’s narrow invasion-of-privacy statute, § 565.252, which prohibits photographing or filming another person’s nudity or under clothing without consent in a place where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Missouri’s wiretap statute does not carve out any special rule for recording in the home. The law’s definition of interception expressly includes but is not limited to interception by one spouse of another spouse, confirming that the wiretap consent rules apply fully within the home and between spouses. There is no statutory exemption making home recording either more permissive or stricter than recording elsewhere.

Missouri is within the Eighth Circuit, which has recognized a right to passively observe on-duty police interactions but has not clearly established a First Amendment right to actively record such interactions for qualified-immunity purposes. Missouri’s wiretap statute does not independently criminalize recording police in public.

Imagine you are at a public park when two people nearby begin arguing loudly. You discreetly turn on your phone’s voice recorder in your pocket. Because this is an in-person conversation in a public place and you are using an ordinary non-radio device, Missouri’s wiretap law does not criminalize the recording. The recording captures the argument clearly.

Missouri’s Supreme Court Advisory Committee has adopted a formal ethics opinion holding that an attorney may record a conversation to which the attorney is a party without notifying the other parties, provided the recording is legal under Missouri law and not accompanied by independent deceit. The opinion conditions this permission on three requirements: the recording must be lawful under state law, the attorney must not make misleading statements about whether they are recording, and if the conversation is with a current client, the attorney must give some notice that recording is happening or may happen.

Missouri does not have a dedicated biometric privacy statute applicable to private entities. The state has no BIPA-style law and no comprehensive consumer privacy act that would classify biometric data as sensitive or impose a written-consent requirement. A narrow government-only biometric statute, § 302.170, restricts the Department of Revenue’s use of biometric data (including voice data) in driver’s-license production but does not reach private companies. Bills that would have created a private right of action for biometric privacy violations have been introduced in three consecutive legislative sessions and have died each time.