Is It Legal to Record a Conversation in Texas?

Statute · Penalty: mixed

Tex. Penal Code § 16.02 (Unlawful Interception, Use, or Disclosure of Wire, Oral, or Electronic Communications) — criminal wiretap statute, one-party consent exception at § 16.02(c)(4); civil counterpart at Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 123 (§§ 123.001–123.004)

In-person vs. phone & video calls

Texas does not distinguish in-person oral conversations from phone/electronic communications for consent purposes. Sec. 16.02(c)(4) applies the same one-party consent rule uniformly to "wire, oral, or electronic communications" as those terms are defined in Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 18A.001. All three categories are treated identically: recording is lawful if the person recording is a party to the communication, or one party has given prior consent — unless the interception is for the purpose of committing a separate unlawful act (§16.02(c)(4)(B)). "Oral communication" is defined (art. 18A.001(19)) as one uttered with "an expectation that the communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying that expectation" — mirroring the federal reasonable-expectation-of-privacy standard — but this doesn't change the outcome for a one-party recorder.

Recording in public

Because Texas is one-party consent and the wearable-device user is a direct participant/observer in the disputes and interactions being recorded, the public-place question is largely academic for audio (the user's own participation already satisfies §16.02(c)(4)). Independently, "oral communication" under art. 18A.001(19) requires the speaker to have exhibited "an expectation that the communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying that expectation" — a loud public argument or a police encounter conducted in public generally does not carry such a justifiable expectation, reinforcing that the statute is not implicated. For video, §21.15 (Invasive Visual Recording) is expressly limited to intimate body areas not subject to public view, bathrooms, and changing rooms, and does not apply to recording in public places or during public interactions. No Texas statute imposes a general "reasonable expectation of privacy" bar on recording people or officers in public places.

Recording at home

There is no separate or stricter wiretap rule for recording inside one's own home — Sec. 16.02(c)(4)'s one-party consent standard applies identically regardless of location (home, street, workplace, etc.). The only privacy-space-specific statute is Penal Code §21.15 (Invasive Visual Recording), a state jail felony that prohibits nonconsensual recording, with intent to invade privacy, of (1) a person's intimate area (genitals, pubic area, anus, buttocks, female breast) where they have a reasonable expectation it is not subject to public view, or (2) a person "in a place in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy," which §21.15(a)(3-a) defines to include a bathroom, bedroom, and changing room (SB 1317, 84th Leg. 2015) -- so a nonconsensual, intent-to-invade-privacy recording of a person in a bedroom is within §21.15's reach, not just bathroom/changing-room. This is a voyeurism-type provision, not a general "recording in the home" restriction — it would not bar a wearable-device user from recording an ordinary dispute or interaction occurring inside a residence (their own or someone else's, so long as they are lawfully present), only nonconsensual intimate/bathroom/changing-room recording made to invade privacy.

Recording the police

Texas has no statutory law-enforcement-specific consent exception restricting recording of on-duty officers in public, and no current statutory distance/buffer requirement for filming police (a 2015 bill, HB 2918, that would have created a 25-foot no-filming zone around officers, did not pass). Interference with Public Duties (Penal Code §38.15) criminalizes physically interrupting/impeding/interfering with a peace officer's duties (Class B misdemeanor under §38.15(b) (there is no subsection (b-1) and no Class C tier in this section). The most recent amendment added utility-company employees/agents as a protected class (§38.15(a)(8), added by S.B. 482, eff. Sept. 1, 2025) -- unrelated to filming/recording), but §38.15(d) provides an express statutory defense: "It is a defense to prosecution under this section that the interruption, disruption, impediment, or interference alleged consisted of speech only" — meaning passive recording/filming alone, without physical obstruction, is not chargeable interference. On the constitutional side, Texas sits in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi). In Turner v. Driver, 848 F.3d 678 (5th Cir. Feb. 16, 2017) (CourtListener docket 4349754/4371507), the Fifth Circuit held that the First Amendment protects a right to record police performing their duties in public, subject only to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions — though the court found that right was not yet "clearly established" as of the September 2015 incident in that case (denying damages on qualified-immunity grounds for that plaintiff), meaning the right is clearly established for conduct after February 2017. Turner remains controlling Fifth Circuit law with no subsequent en banc or Supreme Court reversal identified in this research.

Video-only capture (no audio)

Silent video-only recording (no audio) is NOT restricted by the Texas wiretap statute. Sec. 16.02 only regulates "communications" (wire, oral, electronic) — the civil statute (Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §123.001(2)) likewise defines "interception" as the "aural acquisition" of a communication's contents. A purely visual/silent recording captures no "communication" under either statute and falls outside their scope. The only Texas statute touching silent visual recording is Penal Code §21.15 (Invasive Visual Recording) — a narrow, voyeurism-focused provision (see own_home_exception_notes) that requires (a) no consent, (b) intent to invade privacy, and (c) either an "intimate area" with a reasonable expectation it's not subject to public view, or a bathroom/changing room. It has no application to filming public disputes, ordinary interpersonal interactions, or on-duty police in public. No Texas case law was found extending wiretap/eavesdropping liability to silent video capture of public interactions.

What counts as a “private” conversation →

Texas uses a full, judicially-adopted "legitimate expectation of privacy" (REP) test — not a bright-line rule and not a statute with no gate at all. Statutory text: Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 18A.001(19) (current codification; the definition was construed by the controlling case below under its prior citation, former art. 18.20 § 1(2)) defines "oral communication" as: "an oral communication uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that the communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying that expectation." Independently verified verbatim against the actual opinion text (see below) and against Tex. Penal Code § 16.02(a)(1), which cross-references this same definitional article: "'wire communication,' 'oral communication,' ... have the meanings assigned by Article 18A.001, Code of Criminal Procedure" (confirmed verbatim via a live fetch of the current codes.findlaw.com text of § 16.02(a)(1)). Controlling case law: Long v. State, 535 S.W.3d 511 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017) (CCA No. PD-0984-15, Wendee Long v. The State of Texas, opinion by Newell, J., joined by Keller, P.J., Keasler, Hervey, Yeary, and Keel, JJ. — 6 judges; Richardson, J. dissented joined by Alcala and Walker, JJ. — 3 judges, i.e., 6-3) squarely holds that this statutory phrase "incorporate[s] the Fourth Amendment's legitimate-expectation-of-privacy standard." I independently pulled and read the full 58-page official opinion PDF directly from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (via search.txcourts.gov) and confirmed, word-for-word, the operative holding language: "We agree with the court of appeals that our legislature intended that the definition of 'oral communication' in Article 18.20 be read to incorporate the Fourth Amendment's legitimate-expectation-of-privacy standard. To that end, when determining whether a person exhibited 'an expectation that the communication is not subject to interception' under Article 18.20, we ask whether the person speaking displayed through his conduct a subjective expectation of privacy in his conversation. When we consider whether there were 'circumstances justifying that expectation' under Article 18.20, we must determine whether society is prepared to recognize a person's subjective expectation of privacy as objectively reasonable." This is the classic two-part Katz/Harlan test, not merely an "expectation of non-interception" as the State had argued — the opinion itself confirms the Court expressly rejected that narrower reading, found the statute ambiguous ("there appear to be at least two possible interpretations for the phrase 'circumstances justifying that expectation'"), and resolved the ambiguity via legislative history (1981 House Bill 360 analysis) in favor of the full REP standard. For the "objectively reasonable" prong, Long applies a non-exhaustive, six-factor totality-of-the-circumstances test drawn from Granados v. State, 85 S.W.3d 217, 223 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002) — citation and quote independently confirmed verbatim from the opinion text itself: (1) whether the person had a proprietary or possessory interest in the place; (2) whether the person's presence there was legitimate; (3) whether the person had a right to exclude others; (4) whether the person took normal precautions to protect privacy; (5) whether the place was put to private use; and (6) whether the privacy claim is consistent with historical notions of privacy — "this list of factors is not exhaustive, however, and none is dispositive of a particular assertion of privacy; rather we examine the circumstances in their totality" (quoted directly from the opinion). Critically, Long confirms the test cuts both ways on public exposure: it favorably distinguishes Roberts v. Houston Indep. Sch. Dist., 788 S.W.2d 107, 111 (Tex. App.–Houston [1st Dist.] 1990, writ denied) — independently confirmed via the opinion's own quotation that the Roberts teacher "was videotaped in a public classroom, in full view of her students, faculty members, and administrators," with no restriction on entry and advance notice that she'd be recorded, so no REP — versus the restricted, access-limited girls' locker room in Long, which did carry a REP. Other cited authority applying the same REP gate to strip protection in public/institutional settings, both independently confirmed verbatim from the opinion: State v. Scheineman, 77 S.W.3d 810, 813 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002) (no REP for "conversations between arrestees who are in custody in a county law enforcement building, even when only the arrestees are present and they subjectively believe that they are unobserved"); Meyer v. State, 78 S.W.3d 505, 508-09 (Tex. App.–Austin 2002, pet. ref'd) (no REP in statements intercepted in the back of a patrol car — note: the Long opinion's footnote 45 does NOT show a Court of Criminal Appeals affirmance for Meyer itself; the "aff'd, 252 S.W.3d 398 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008)" parenthetical in that same footnote actually attaches to a different case cited in the same string cite, Moseley v. State, 223 S.W.3d 593, 599 (Tex. App.–Amarillo 2007), not to Meyer — see correction below). Long itself ultimately held the coach DID have a legitimate expectation of privacy in his halftime locker-room speech (access restricted to team/coaches, two sets of entry doors, private use, right to exclude, historical/6th-Circuit locker-room privacy authority), affirming the recorder's conviction under § 16.02 — independently confirmed ("Consequently, we affirm Appellant's conviction for her role in the interception of the coach's communication with his team in the team's locker room."). An in-person conversation in Texas must first qualify as a protected "oral communication" — meaning the speaker exhibited a subjective expectation that it would not be intercepted, and that expectation is one society is prepared to recognize as objectively reasonable under the Granados six-factor totality test as applied in Long v. State, 535 S.W.3d 511 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017) — before Penal Code § 16.02(c)(4)(A)'s one-party-consent rule ever comes into play; if the conversation clears that threshold, only one participating party's consent is needed (Texas is a one-party state, consistent with the existing row's consent_type field). But if it doesn't clear the threshold (e.g., a conversation in a place open to public view with no restriction on access, like the "public classroom" in Roberts v. Houston ISD, or statements made in a law-enforcement building per State v. Scheineman), the statute doesn't apply at all and no one's consent — not even one party's — is legally required, regardless of who is doing the recording, including a participant. This reading is independently corroborated by the Long opinion's own reasoning that "[b]y providing an affirmative defense to the crime for a party to the communication, Section 16.02 necessarily limits the application of the statute to interception of oral communication by uninvited third parties" — i.e., the one-party-consent affirmative defense in § 16.02(c)(4) is logically downstream of, and only relevant once, the "oral communication" gate is cleared.

Biometric / voiceprint law →

Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act ("CUBI") — Confirmed: "biometric identifier" is expressly defined to include voiceprint — "a retina or iris scan, fingerprint, voiceprint, or record of hand or face geometry" (quoted verbatim from texas.public.law and from the official Texas Legislature's own enrolled bill text at capitol.texas.gov, which agree word-for-word). Before capturing a biometric identifier for a commercial purpose, a person must (b) inform the individual and obtain consent. Must protect it with reasonable care, may not sell/lease/disclose except narrow carve-outs, and must destroy within a reasonable time, not later than the first anniversary of when the collection purpose expires (employer/security-purpose collection: purpose expires at termination). Financial-institution voiceprint carve-out (GLBA-tied) exists and is not applicable to live.law. IMPORTANT UPDATE the original researcher flagged as an unverified, possibly-hallucinated claim but could not run down (session's search budget was exhausted) — I independently confirmed it this session directly from the Texas Legislature's own enrolled bill text (capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/billtext/html/HB00149F.htm), which is a primary source: H.B. 149, the Texas Responsible AI Governance Act, signed by the Governor 6/22/2025 and effective January 1, 2026 (already in force as of today, 7/22/2026), amended §503.001 to add: (b-1) publicly-available internet images/media of a person do not constitute "informed consent" unless the individual themself made that image public; and (e) three exemptions from the whole section — (1) the pre-existing financial-institution voiceprint carve-out, (2) "the training, processing, or storage of biometric identifiers involved in developing, training, evaluating, disseminating, or otherwise offering artificial intelligence models or systems, UNLESS a system is used or deployed for the purpose of uniquely identifying a specific individual," and (3) AI systems deployed for security-incident/fraud/identity-theft/harassment prevention or investigation purposes; plus (f), a claw-back providing that if a biometric identifier captured under the AI-training exemption is later used for a commercial purpose outside (e), full CUBI possession/destruction/penalty rules re-attach. This is directly material to live.law: if the smartglasses' voice processing is characterized as training/evaluating an AI model and does NOT function to uniquely identify a specific wearer, it may now fall outside CUBI's scope entirely (no notice/consent required) — but if the feature does use voice to identify/authenticate a specific individual (which a "connect wearer to attorney" routing feature plausibly could, depending on architecture), the identification carve-back in (e)(2) applies and full notice/consent/retention obligations remain. This threshold question is unresolved by any Texas case law (still true post-amendment — no case has construed the new "uniquely identifying" language yet, since it just took effect) and should be run down with product/privacy counsel before relying on it as a safe harbor. Note also (a) now cross-references a separate, newly created definition of "artificial intelligence system" at Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 551.001 (part of the same H.B. 149), which I did not independently pull the full text of this session.

Attorney ethics (ABA Formal Op. 01-422) →

Texas has squarely addressed this question, and its current rule tracks ABA Formal Opinion 01-422's permissive approach with Texas-specific conditions layered on. The Professional Ethics Committee had gone back and forth: Opinion 84 (Nov. 1953) held undisclosed recording was not a violation of the Canons of Ethics; Opinion 392 (Feb. 1978) overruled Opinion 84 and held that undisclosed recording "offends the sense of honor and fair play of most people," generally prohibiting it; Opinion 514 (Feb. 1996) reaffirmed that prohibition, citing Rule 8.04(a)(3) (Texas's analog to Model Rule 8.4(c), barring "conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation"). In Opinion 575 (Nov. 2006), the Committee expressly noted that the ABA had withdrawn old Formal Opinion 337 (1974) in favor of Formal Opinion 01-422 (June 24, 2001), and reconsidered its own precedent in light of that shift. It concluded: "The Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct do not prohibit a Texas lawyer from making an undisclosed recording of the lawyer's telephone conversations provided that (1) recordings of conversations involving a client are made to further a legitimate purpose of the lawyer or the client, (2) confidential client information contained in any recording is appropriately protected by the lawyer in accordance with Rule 1.05, (3) the undisclosed recording does not constitute a serious criminal violation under the laws of any jurisdiction applicable to the telephone conversation recorded, and (4) the recording is not contrary to a representation made by the lawyer to any person. Opinions 392 and 514 are overruled." The Committee reasoned that because "persons in Texas are generally not prohibited from making undisclosed recordings of their telephone conversations and that many businesses routinely record telephone conversations on business premises with or without notice," an undisclosed recording by a party to the call cannot be termed "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation" under Rule 8.04(a)(3), "absent more." The opinion conditions its holding on legality, citing Texas Penal Code section 16.02 et seq. (Texas's one-party-consent wiretap statute) and 18 U.S.C. section 2511, and separately invokes Rule 8.04(a)(2) (barring involvement in a serious crime) to prohibit recording where the specific call would be a serious criminal offense under any applicable jurisdiction's law (not just Texas's). Net result: no per-se ethics violation for undisclosed recording in Texas, subject to (a) legality under applicable wiretap law, (b) a legitimate purpose and Rule 1.05 confidentiality safeguards when a client is involved, and (c) no representation to any person that the call is not being recorded. This is fundamentally a 01-422-aligned general permission with defined guardrails, not a narrow case-by-case carve-out.

Can you personally sue over a violation?

Yes — this state gives a private right of action, not just criminal/regulatory enforcement.

Can I record as a guest in someone else's home?

Texas doesn't lean hard on where you're standing — recording as a guest in someone else's home is treated much like recording anywhere else in the state.

What if I'm on a call with someone in another state?

Which state's rule actually governs an interstate call touching Texas isn't clearly settled. The safest approach is still to follow whichever state — yours or theirs — requires more from you.

This is a newer, less-settled corner of the law — our own research is still being refined here, so treat this as a starting point, not a final answer.

If it's legal to record, can it still be used against me later?

Usually, yes. Being legal to record and being protected from a future court case are two different questions — a legal recording can generally still be obtained by the other side later. That's especially true the moment a third person is present or on the line — even one extra listener can be enough to strip away legal protection here. Recording your own conversation with your own attorney is a separate, more protected situation, but almost everything else — a landlord, a police officer, a family member — isn't automatically off-limits to opposing counsel just because it was legal to capture.

This is a newer, less-settled corner of the law — our own research is still being refined here, so treat this as a starting point, not a final answer.