Is It Legal to Record a Conversation in Vermont?

Statute · Penalty: mixed

None — Vermont has no general wiretapping/eavesdropping consent statute governing private citizens' recording of oral or electronic communications. Confirmed by direct review of the full chapter listing of Title 13 (Crimes and Criminal Procedure) on the official Vermont Legislature site (legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/title/13): the only communications-related chapter is Chapter 232, the 'Vermont Electronic Communication Privacy Act' (13 V.S.A. §§ 8101–8108), which regulates only (a) government/law-enforcement compelled production of records from electronic-communication service providers and (b) law-enforcement use of real-time interception devices — it does not regulate private-party recording at all. The one statute that does touch surreptitious recording by private individuals is 13 V.S.A. § 2605 (Voyeurism, Title 13, Ch. 59), but it is narrow: (b)/(e) criminalize recording a person's nude/undergarment-clad 'intimate areas' without consent where privacy is reasonably expected, and (d) criminalizes secretly conducting 'surveillance' or recording ANY person (regardless of nudity) without consent while that person is 'in a place where he or she would have a reasonable expectation of privacy within a home or residence.' It does not reach the wearable-device use case described (recording disputes, interactions with strangers, or on-duty police in public places). In the absence of a state wiretap statute, the operative consent rule for oral/audio recording in Vermont is supplied by federal law: 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d) (federal Wiretap Act), which sets one-party consent (any party to the communication may record without notifying the others, unless done for a criminal or tortious purpose).

In-person vs. phone & video calls

No state statute distinguishes in-person conversations from telephone/electronic communications for private-citizen recording, because no general state consent statute exists for either. For BOTH categories, federal law (18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2522, one-party consent) is the default operative rule in the absence of Vermont analogues. Separately, 13 V.S.A. Chapter 232 (§§ 8101-8108) imposes its own restrictions, but only on government/law-enforcement acquisition of electronic communications and real-time location/communication interception — not on private citizens recording their own in-person or phone interactions.

Recording in public

No Vermont statute directly addresses a public-place exception because there is no general consent statute to except from. Federal one-party consent (18 U.S.C. §2511(2)(d)) covers a participant recording their own conversations anywhere, including public places, without needing a public-place carve-out. For video/photography, 13 V.S.A. §2605's 'reasonable expectation of privacy' definitions are keyed to whether intimate areas would be visible to the public or whether the person is in a place where they could expect to disrobe in privacy or be free from surveillance — by its terms this leaves a person's ordinary (non-intimate) conduct in public, including arguments and police encounters, outside its scope. Secondary sources (RCFP guide) similarly note filming conduct/conversations on public streets does not implicate Vermont's voyeurism statute. I did not find controlling Vermont case law creating or rejecting a general public-recording privacy tort exception, beyond the general common-law intrusion-upon-seclusion tort (a secondary source cites Hodgdon v. Mt. Mansfield Co., 160 Vt. 150 (1992), which I could not independently verify against a primary source this session — treat that specific citation as lower confidence).

Recording at home

13 V.S.A. § 2605(d) is the one state-law provision squarely addressing in-home recording: it makes it a crime to intentionally conduct 'surveillance' (secret observation for the purpose of spying/invading privacy) or to photograph, film, or record ANY person (nudity not required) without that person's knowledge and consent while that person is in a place with a reasonable expectation of privacy 'within a home or residence' — subject to an exemption for bona fide private investigators/security guards acting within lawful employment, and a separate exemption (§2605(g)) for law enforcement/corrections officials conducting official activities. First offense: up to 2 years imprisonment and/or $1,000 fine; second/subsequent offense: up to 3 years and/or $5,000 (13 V.S.A. § 2605(j)). 13 V.S.A. § 1 defines a felony as an offense with a maximum term of MORE THAN TWO YEARS -- a first offense (max 2 years) does NOT exceed that threshold and is therefore a MISDEMEANOR, not a felony. Only a second/subsequent offense (up to 3 years) or a subsection (c) disclosure offense (up to 5 years) qualifies as a felony. Separately, on the government/police side, State v. Geraw, 173 Vt. 350 (Vt. 2002) held that Article 11 of the Vermont Constitution bars police from secretly audio-recording a suspect's statements inside the suspect's own home during a consensual, invited interview, absent a warrant — a suppression-of-evidence ruling limiting STATE ACTORS' secret recording in a person's home, distinct from the §2605(d) statute governing private parties. Neither provision creates a special rule benefiting a person recording INSIDE THEIR OWN home versus outside it — §2605(d) instead restricts covertly recording another person inside a home (whosever home), without that other person's knowledge/consent. A wearable-device user openly wearing a visible camera (not covert 'surveillance') who is a participant/party present in the interaction has a stronger argument that §2605(d) and the 'secret recording' concern in Geraw are not implicated, but this is not judicially tested for that fact pattern — moderate confidence only.

Recording the police

No Vermont statute creates a specific right (or restriction) for citizens recording police; §2605(g)(1) exempts law enforcement officers themselves from the voyeurism statute while performing official duties — it does not restrict citizens filming officers. Constitutionally, Vermont sits in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the SECOND CIRCUIT (with New York and Connecticut). Corroborating sources (RCFP's circuit-by-circuit right-to-record summary and a general web search) indicate the Second Circuit has NOT squarely/directly recognized a First Amendment right to record on-duty police performing public duties, unlike the First, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits, which have. This leaves officers in the Second Circuit more likely to retain qualified immunity in civil-rights suits over interference with recording, even though some district courts within the circuit (e.g., S.D.N.Y.) have recognized the right at the trial-court level (not binding circuit precedent). I could not fully verify this against the controlling Second Circuit opinion text itself in this session (tool could not load full case text), so treat this conclusion as medium confidence.

Video-only capture (no audio)

Silent, audio-less video/photographic recording is NOT restricted by any general Vermont statute for the described use case (capturing disputes, interactions with strangers, interactions with on-duty police in public or semi-public settings). The only state provision touching video-only recording is 13 V.S.A. §2605, which restricts video/photo recording only in two narrow situations: (1) recording another person's nude/undergarment-clad 'intimate areas' without consent where privacy is reasonably expected (§2605(b)/(e)), and (2) secretly recording/surveilling any person (nudity irrelevant) inside a home or residence without consent (§2605(d)). Recording a dispute, argument, or police interaction on a public street, in a store, during a traffic stop, etc. — with no 'intimate areas' and no in-home surveillance involved — falls outside §2605's reach. Because Vermont has no wiretap statute, video-only recording was never independently regulated by an audio-consent statute in the first place; the federal one-party-consent framework (18 U.S.C. §2511) governs only the AUDIO component when present and has no application to a silent video stream.

What counts as a “private” conversation →

Vermont has NO state wiretap/eavesdropping statute, so Vermont itself never defines a "private conversation," "confidential communication," or "oral communication" gate for private-citizen audio recording. Independently confirmed by direct retrieval of the full Title 13 chapter list on legislature.vermont.gov (81 chapters enumerated; the only communications-related chapter is 232, "Vermont Electronic Communication Privacy Act," §§8101-8108, whose section list — Definitions; Limitations on compelled production of electronic information; Notice to user/subscriber; Exclusive remedies; Execution of warrant; Service provider's response to warrant; Criminal process issued by Vermont court; Real-time interception of information prohibited — confirms it reaches only government/law-enforcement acquisition, not private citizens). Because no VT statute of general application exists, the operative gate for AUDIO recording in the ordinary public/semi-public wearable-glasses use case (arguments, stranger interactions, on-duty police encounters) is supplied by FEDERAL law, which the existing row already identifies as filling the gap. The federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510(2) (text independently verified verbatim via Cornell LII in two separate fetches), defines a protected "oral communication" as: "any oral communication uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation, but such term does not include any electronic communication." This is a two-part, Katz-style reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test: (1) subjective — the speaker must actually expect the communication not to be intercepted, and (2) objective — the surrounding circumstances must justify that expectation. Courts construing this identical statutory phrase apply factors such as the location/volume of the speech, the presence and proximity of third parties, and precautions the speaker took to keep the conversation private. If a statement does not clear this threshold — e.g., a loud argument on a public sidewalk within earshot/view of bystanders — it is not a protected "oral communication" under Title III at all, so the one-party-consent regime never engages in the first place. Cross-jurisdictional authority confirms this reading: Long v. State, 535 S.W.3d 511 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017) — independently re-verified against the actual opinion text via the Harvard Caselaw Access Project's static case-law archive (case ID 12409057, docket NO. PD-0984-15, decided June 28, 2017) — squarely holds, construing the near-identically-worded Texas statute: "Does the definition of 'oral communication' in the state wiretap statute incorporate the expectation-of-privacy test? We hold that it does." This is genuinely persuasive, not controlling, authority for Vermont (out-of-circuit, Fifth Circuit's home state, not the Second Circuit), and the original analysis correctly hedged it as such. ONE CORRECTION to the original submission: it mischaracterized 13 V.S.A. §2605(d) (Voyeurism) as gating "only covert VIDEO/photo 'surveillance.'" Independently re-verified the full statutory text via legislature.vermont.gov (verbatim): subsection (d) reads "No person shall intentionally conduct surveillance or intentionally photograph, film, or record in any format a person without that person's knowledge and consent while the person being surveilled, photographed, filmed, or recorded is in a place where he or she would have a reasonable expectation of privacy within a home or residence." The verb list ("conduct surveillance," "photograph," "film," "record in any format") is disjunctive, not conjunctive — "record in any format" and "surveillance" (defined at §2605(a)(7) as "secret observation of the activities of another person for the purpose of spying upon and invading the privacy of the person") are NOT limited to visual media and would reach a hidden audio-only recorder placed inside someone's home. So §2605(d) is not merely a video/photo-only analogue — it is a second, narrow, VT-specific AUDIO (and video/photo) gate for the specific covert-in-home fact pattern, layered on top of (not replaced by) the federal gate. This does not change the bottom-line conclusion for the wearable-glasses use case (public/semi-public recording, not covert in-home recording), but the "video/photo only" description of §2605(d) was inaccurate and has been corrected here. Separately, State v. Geraw, 173 Vt. 350, 795 A.2d 1219 (2002) — independently verified via the Harvard Caselaw Access Project's static archive (official reporter text, docket No. 00-459, decided March 15, 2002) — confirms the quoted holding verbatim: "We conclude that Chapter I, Article 11 of the Vermont Constitution prohibits such secret recording," in a case where police secretly tape-recorded an invited, consensual home interview of a suspect without a warrant; the trial court's suppression order was affirmed. This is a state-constitutional gate that restrains only GOVERNMENT ACTORS, not private citizens, and so does not govern the wearable-glasses private-citizen use case directly — the original analysis's characterization of this case is accurate. Verified as legally correct and left substantively unchanged: Because Vermont has no state wiretap statute, an audio recording is only subject to any consent rule at all if the conversation first qualifies as a protected "oral communication" under the federal Wiretap Act's threshold test, 18 U.S.C. §2510(2) — i.e., the speaker exhibited an expectation of privacy that the circumstances objectively justified. If that gate is cleared, federal law's one-party-consent default (18 U.S.C. §2511(2)(d), text independently re-verified verbatim via Cornell LII) governs, meaning only one participant's consent is needed. If the gate is NOT cleared (e.g., a loud dispute on a public street in plain view/earshot of others, with no precautions taken), no one's consent — from any party — is legally required to record the audio under the federal Wiretap Act. One added precision: this analysis governs the general public/semi-public case; for the narrow fact pattern of covert AUDIO recording inside a home or residence, 13 V.S.A. §2605(d) supplies an independent, VT-specific state-law gate on top of the federal one (see correction above) — a nuance the original summary did not surface but which does not change its bottom-line conclusion for live.law's core (public-space) use case.

Biometric / voiceprint law →

None currently in effect. (Narrow, non-general exception: Vermont Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, 9 V.S.A. §§ 2449a-2449j — a minors-only online-safety/design-code statute that happens to define "biometric data," not a BIPA-style biometric consent law. A broader comprehensive privacy act, H.121 (2024), was vetoed and the veto was sustained.) — None applicable to general/adult voice enrollment today. No Vermont statute currently requires written consent, advance notice, or a public retention/destruction policy before a private company collects or processes a voiceprint. The only statutory hook for "voice prints" is the definition of "biometric data" in the Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (9 V.S.A. § 2449a(5)(A)(v), confirmed verbatim: "voice prints or vocal biomarkers"), which is not effective until January 1, 2027, applies only when the end user is a "covered minor" (under 18) and the operator is a "covered business" (majority of revenue from online services, product reasonably likely accessed by minors, etc.), and even then imposes design/transparency/data-minimization duties rather than a specific consent-before-collection mandate for biometric identifiers. Separately, if a breach were to expose Vermont residents' stored voiceprints, the Security Breach Notice Act (9 V.S.A. §§ 2430, 2435) would likely require breach notification, since biometric data (confirmed: "unique biometric data generated from measurements or technical analysis of human body") is included in its "personally identifiable information" definition — but that is a post-breach notice duty, not a pre-collection consent requirement.

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

Verified against the primary source (full PDF of PRB Decision No. 109 obtained and text-extracted). The decision, filed May 23, 2008 (PRB File No. 2007.046), involved two criminal defense lawyers who secretly taped a phone interview with a witness; when the witness asked "Are you recording this conversation?" the respondent answered "No." The Board reviewed the history from ABA Formal Opinion No. 337 (1974)'s per-se prohibition through its 2001 replacement by ABA Formal Opinion 01-422 (which held "the mere act of secretly but lawfully recording a conversation is not deceitful") and stated, verbatim: "We are persuaded that should the issue of surreptitious taping ever arise again in Vermont, we should and will follow the new ABA Formal Opinion." The Board also stated, verbatim: "it is the false statement to the witness, and not the undisclosed tape recording itself, that is the basis for the charge of a violation of Rule 4.1." This confirms Vermont's operative position: undisclosed/secret recording, standing alone, is not per se unethical — Vermont aligns with ABA 01-422, on the presupposition that the recording is otherwise legal (Vermont is a one-party-consent recording state). What IS independently sanctionable is affirmatively lying when directly asked whether a conversation is being recorded (Rule 4.1) — confirmed as the actual basis for the private admonition imposed here. The Board expressly declined to find a Rule 8.4(c) violation, reasoning (confirmed verbatim) that Rule 8.4 is "intended to apply only to conduct so egregious that it indicates that the lawyer charged lacks the moral character to practice law," and that this conduct did not rise to that level. This decision supersedes Vermont's older PCB Decision No. 73 (July 15, 1994), confirmed via direct quotation in PRB 109 itself, which under the prior Code (DR 1-102(A)(4)) had found undisclosed recording of a witness to be "conduct involving a lack of candor and honesty" and stated an attorney should give the other party the chance to consent before recording. The Board's own opinion frames its adoption of 01-422 as arguably dicta, expressly noting the actual violation/holding turned on the misrepresentation, not the taping itself — this self-aware caveat is confirmed directly in the text ("In deciding this case, however, we recognize that it is not the fact of the undisclosed taping that is the alleged violation here, but rather the misrepresentation..."). The secondary source (a Vermont Bar Counsel office blog post dated February 17, 2022, "Surreptitious Recordings Still Make My Spidey Sense Tingle") was also independently fetched and confirmed to discuss PRB 109 and to contain the quoted cautionary language, confirmed verbatim: "even in one-party consent states, lawyers should think long and hard about surreptitiously recording conversations," and separately cautions against undisclosed recordings of one's own clients on trust/candor grounds. No more recent Vermont Supreme Court opinion or formal ethics advisory opinion squarely revisiting this question was located. Bottom line for the dataset: Vermont does NOT treat undisclosed recording by a lawyer as per se unethical (aligns with ABA 01-422), provided the recording is otherwise lawful under Vermont's one-party-consent statute; but affirmatively lying when directly asked about recording remains an independent Rule 4.1 violation. This "recording is fine" holding should not be conflated with a blanket safe harbor — current Bar Counsel guidance still recommends caution, especially as to recording one's own clients.

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?

Vermont sometimes gives extra leeway for recording in your own home. Whether that same leeway extends to a home you're just visiting — a custody exchange, a landlord's unit, a friend's place — is a genuinely open question here.

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.

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

Play it safe: if either state on the call requires everyone's okay to record, treat the whole call that way — don't assume Vermont's rule is the only one that matters just because you're the one wearing the glasses.

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. 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.