Recording Law for Police & Civil Rights in Tennessee

Tennessee’s wiretapping law allows you to legally record any conversation you’re part of without telling the other person. The law provides that it is lawful to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication where the person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to the interception, unless the communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act. This is called a one-party consent rule, meaning only one person in the conversation needs to agree to the recording. Tennessee is not an all-party state, so you don’t need everyone’s permission to record. This rule applies to in-person conversations, phone calls, and electronic messages alike. Tennessee repealed its civil lawsuit option for illegal recording in 2024 by repealing Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-603, effective May 28, 2024, leaving criminal penalties as the sole remedy.

Recording police during a traffic stop, arrest, or other public encounter is generally allowed in Tennessee, but it depends on whether the conversation has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Tennessee’s wiretapping statute defines an "oral communication" as one where a person exhibits an expectation that the communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying that expectation. For example, a loud argument on a public sidewalk usually has no such expectation, so recording it is fine. But if people lower their voices, step inside a building, or close a door, that can create a reasonable expectation of privacy even in a public place. The law’s prohibition turns on this reasonable-expectation-of-privacy gatekeeper: communications occurring in public where there is no REP generally fall outside the statute’s protection, so no consent is legally required to record them. Conversely, a lowered voice or a closed door can establish an REP even in an otherwise public or semi-public setting.

Recording your own conversation inside your home is protected under Tennessee’s one-party consent rule because you’re part of the discussion. But recording other people’s private conversations in your home without their consent is riskier. Tennessee’s wiretapping statute applies uniformly regardless of location; the operative variable is whether the speaker had an expectation that the communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying that expectation, which as a factual matter is more easily satisfied inside a private home than in public. This means a wearer recording their own interactions in their own home remains protected by one-party consent, but covertly recording other people’s private conversations they are not part of inside a home is more likely to be found unlawful than the same act in a public place. The statute does not create a separate carve-out for recording inside a home, and no Tennessee case squarely decides this exact scenario.

If your device only captures video without recording audio, Tennessee law does not restrict it at all. The wiretapping statute only prohibits interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications—meaning it is a communications-interception statute, not a general image/video-capture statute. Purely visual recording without any audio component falls outside its scope entirely, regardless of consent. This includes body cameras, dash cams, or smartphone video that doesn’t capture sound. However, if you later add audio to the video or use a separate device to record audio along with the video, the one-party consent rule applies to the audio portion.

Recording a conversation without the required consent in Tennessee is a felony under the wiretapping statute. Tennessee repealed its civil lawsuit option for illegal recording in 2024 by repealing Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-603, effective May 28, 2024, leaving criminal charges as the remedy. Your only recourse is through criminal penalties against the person who did the recording. For police encounters, this means an officer can’t use Tennessee’s wiretapping law to stop you from recording in public, but they may still try to stop you for other reasons—like obstruction—even if the recording itself is legal.

Imagine you’re pulled over for speeding on a busy highway in Nashville. The officer approaches your car and starts asking for your license and registration. You place your phone on the dashboard and start recording video with sound. The officer notices and says, "Turn that off—you can’t record me." You keep recording. Under Tennessee law, this is legal because you’re part of the conversation and the encounter is in public with no reasonable expectation of privacy. The officer’s objection doesn’t change the legality of the recording itself. If the officer tries to seize your phone or delete the recording, that could be a separate issue, but the recording remains protected. Now imagine the same stop, but you step inside your house to talk to the officer because it’s raining. Once inside, the officer lowers their voice and closes the door. In that case, a court might find the conversation had a reasonable expectation of privacy, so consent would be required to record unless you’re part of the discussion.

Tennessee’s wiretapping statute governs whether consent is required to record, but it does not address whether there is a First Amendment right to record police performing public duties. As of current research, the Sixth Circuit has not issued a published decision squarely recognizing such a right, and no unpublished decision affirms denial of qualified immunity on a recording-related First Amendment claim. Tennessee statutory and case law otherwise governs ordinary one-party-consent recording. In practice, recording police in public is generally safe under the wiretap statute, but officers may still object or take other actions that raise separate legal issues. If an officer directs you to stop recording or attempts to seize your device, consult legal counsel before continuing.