Recording Law for Voiceprints & Biometric Data in Utah

Utah allows you to record any conversation you are part of without telling the other person, under the Utah Interception of Communications Act. The statute provides that a person may intercept a wire, electronic, or oral communication if that person is a party to the communication or one of the parties has given prior consent, unless the communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing a criminal or tortious act. The law treats 'wire,' 'electronic,' and 'oral' communications differently at the threshold stage. Only 'oral communication' carries a reasonable-expectation-of-privacy element: Utah Code § 77-23a-3 defines an 'oral communication' as 'any oral communication uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that the communication is not subject to interception, under circumstances justifying that expectation.' Phone calls and electronic messages are 'wire' or 'electronic communications' under separate definitions in the same statute, and those definitions contain no expectation-of-privacy requirement; once covered by the Interception Act, the one-party consent rule applies uniformly regardless of the other party's expectations. The statute does not require you to inform the other party, but it does prohibit using the recording to commit a crime or a tort. If you are a lawyer using a voice-ID feature like live.law’s, you are covered by this rule as long as you are a party to the conversation you are recording.

Utah has a specific statutory safe harbor for recording on-duty police officers in plain view. Utah Code § 76-8-305(4) provides that recording the actions of a peace officer with a camera, mobile phone, or other photographic device, while the peace officer is performing official duties in plain view, does not by itself constitute interference with the peace officer, willful resistance, disorderly conduct, or obstruction of justice. This is a 'by itself' safe harbor: it does not override other laws if you physically interfere with the officer’s duties or ignore a lawful order to move back or step outside a secured scene. On top of the state law, a federal appeals court has ruled that the First Amendment protects the right to record police officers performing their official duties in public. In Irizarry v. Yehia, 38 F.4th 1282 (10th Cir. 2022), the Tenth Circuit held that the First Amendment protects this right and that the right was clearly established as of the 2019 incident at issue, denying the defendant officer qualified immunity. Together, these authorities mean you can record an on-duty police officer in a public setting without legal trouble, as long as you do not obstruct their work or violate other laws.

Utah does not have a law like Illinois’ BIPA that requires written consent before collecting a biometric voiceprint. Instead, voiceprints fall under the Utah Consumer Privacy Act (UCPA), but only if the organization meets strict applicability thresholds: annual revenue of $25 million or more, and either processing personal data of 100,000 or more Utah consumers in a year, or deriving more than 50% of gross revenue from selling personal data and processing 25,000 or more Utah consumers. The UCPA defines 'biometric data' to include voiceprints used to identify a specific person, but it excludes raw audio recordings themselves from the definition. If the UCPA applies, the organization must give clear notice and an opportunity to opt out before processing sensitive biometric data like a voiceprint. There is no private right to sue for violations—only the Utah Attorney General can enforce the law, and the AG must give a 30-day cure period before taking action. The UCPA provisions cited here take effect January 1, 2027; present-tense analysis is correct as of today but should be re-verified against the post-2027 version before that date.

Even with Utah’s one-party consent rule, two separate statutory gates can still make a recording illegal. First, the 'oral communication' gate requires that the speaker exhibited an expectation the communication would not be intercepted and that the circumstances objectively justified that expectation. This gate applies only to in-person utterances; phone calls and electronic messages are covered by the Interception Act regardless of either party’s privacy expectations. Second, a separate privacy law—Utah Code § 76-12-302—bars installing or using a device to observe, photograph, hear, record, amplify, or broadcast sounds or events in a 'private place' without the consent of the person entitled to privacy there. This statute applies even to silent video and covers places like someone’s home, and it can apply regardless of whether the recorder is a party to the conversation. Whether secretly recording a guest’s conversation in your own home is allowed is unsettled; the statute does not explicitly resolve how a homeowner’s consent applies to a third party’s conversation, and no Utah case directly answers this question. Because of this gap, a lawyer should review the facts before relying on the homeowner’s consent.

Utah’s privacy law defines a 'private place' as 'a place where one may reasonably expect to be safe from casual or hostile intrusion or surveillance.' This is a location-based test, not a conversation-based one. It covers places like a home, a private office, or a secluded backyard, and it excludes ordinary public places such as streets, sidewalks, stores, and public encounters with police. The statute applies to using a device to observe or record sounds or events in a private place, so it is not limited to audio. Recording someone in a private place without their consent can violate the law even if you are a party to the conversation, because the statute does not tie its application to the recorder’s participation in the conversation being captured.

Imagine you are a lawyer meeting a client in a busy coffee shop. You use your phone to record the conversation for note-taking and voice-ID login. Under Utah’s one-party consent rule, this is legal because you are a party to the conversation. The coffee shop’s ambient noise and crowded setting mean the client likely does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their spoken words, so the 'oral communication' test is satisfied. If the client lowers their voice and says, 'Can we talk privately?' and you continue recording, that segment might raise questions under the 'circumstances justifying that expectation' test; Utah’s law does not provide clear guidance on how courts would treat such a cue, so treating that segment as protected is the safer approach. The UCPA does not apply here because your firm likely does not meet the revenue or consumer thresholds. This is general information, not legal advice for your specific situation.

Utah’s recording laws are layered, and multiple statutes can apply to the same conduct. The Utah Interception of Communications Act (§ 77-23a-4) governs interception of 'wire, electronic, or oral communication[s]' and imposes a one-party consent rule, with a felony penalty for violations unless certain carve-outs downgrade the offense to a misdemeanor. A separate, narrower scheme—Utah Code §§ 76-12-301 to 76-12-303 (Privacy Offenses, recodified effective May 7, 2025)—criminalizes unlawful interception or disclosure of a private communication as a Class B misdemeanor, using a one-party (sender-or-receiver) consent rule that applies to 'a message by telephone, telegraph, letter, or other means of communicating privately,' with no split between in-person and remote communications. These provisions operate alongside each other, and a single act could implicate more than one of them. Additionally, Utah Code § 76-8-305(4) protects lawful recording of on-duty officers in plain view, while the general 'Interference with a peace officer' statute (§ 76-8-305) still criminalizes interfering with a lawful arrest or refusing a lawful order, so compliance with the recording safe harbor does not immunize other obstructive conduct.