Recording Law for Voiceprints & Biometric Data in New Hampshire

New Hampshire requires the consent of every person in a conversation before you can legally record it. This rule applies to both in-person conversations and phone calls. The law defines a protected "oral communication" as any spoken words where the speaker has a reasonable expectation that the communication won’t be intercepted under circumstances justifying such expectation. Whether loud or projected speech in public falls outside this definition is unsettled in New Hampshire; a related but non-precedential Strafford County Superior Court ruling has applied the reasonable-expectation test to a similar fact pattern, but no New Hampshire Supreme Court decision has squarely resolved the issue. For phone calls, the rule is automatic: all parties must consent because phone calls are covered by the law’s "telecommunication" definition. Recording without consent is a class B felony and can lead to lawsuits. The statute provides that a person is guilty of a class B felony if, without the consent of all parties to the communication, the person willfully intercepts a telecommunication or oral communication.

The law doesn’t just protect conversations in private homes. It protects any spoken words where the speaker has a reasonable expectation of privacy under circumstances justifying such expectation. For example, a quiet conversation in a restaurant booth is clearly protected. Whether shouting loudly in a public park so loudly that neighbors can hear without straining falls outside this protection is unsettled; a related but non-precedential Strafford County Superior Court ruling has applied the reasonable-expectation test to a similar fact pattern, but no New Hampshire Supreme Court decision has squarely resolved the issue. The law’s definition hinges on the speaker’s expectation, not the location. The statute defines a protected "oral communication" as one where the speaker has a reasonable expectation that the communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation.

New Hampshire courts have confirmed that openly recording on-duty police performing their duties in public is protected by the First Amendment. This is true even though New Hampshire has strict wiretap laws. The First Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of qualified immunity to officers in Gericke v. Begin, arising directly from a traffic stop in Weare, New Hampshire, holding it was clearly established that citizens have a First Amendment right to film police carrying out duties in public. The key is recording openly, not secretly, and not interfering with police duties. Best-practice guidance from these cases: record openly, do not physically interfere with the officer’s duties, and keep a safe distance.

Starting January 1, 2025, New Hampshire’s Privacy Act (RSA 507-H) regulates biometric voiceprints as "sensitive data." The law defines a voiceprint as data generated by automatic measurements of an individual's biological characteristics, such as a fingerprint or a voiceprint, used to identify a specific individual. If your system creates a template to identify a speaker, that template is regulated. You must get clear, informed consent before processing it. The law also requires controllers to complete a data protection assessment for the voice-enrollment feature. The Attorney General enforces the law, not private lawsuits.

The Privacy Act only applies if your system processes the voiceprints of at least 35,000 New Hampshire consumers in a year, or 10,000 consumers where more than 25% of your revenue comes from selling personal data. Small deployments may not meet these thresholds. The law’s applicability section sets these scale-based thresholds for when the chapter applies.

Imagine a New Hampshire lawyer wants to use a voice-ID feature so clients can authenticate themselves when calling the office. The lawyer records the client’s voice during a consultation and extracts a biometric template. Under New Hampshire’s Privacy Act, this template is sensitive data because it’s used to identify the client. The lawyer must get clear, informed consent before processing it. The consent can’t be buried in a general terms-of-use agreement. The lawyer also needs to complete a data protection assessment for the voice-enrollment feature. Separately, the lawyer must ensure the initial recording complies with the all-party consent rule—if the client is speaking in a private office, consent is required. If the lawyer is unsure, consulting a New Hampshire attorney is the safest step.

New Hampshire’s wiretap statute does not restrict silent video-only recording. The law’s operative terms—intercept, oral communication, and telecommunication—are defined around aural or verbal content, so a camera capturing only images with no audio track does not constitute an interception under RSA Chapter 570-A. Separately, RSA 644:9 restricts unlawful photographing or video-taping in private places such as bathrooms or bedrooms, but that statute is not part of Chapter 570-A and generally does not apply to recording interactions or police in public or semi-public settings.