Recording Law for Voiceprints & Biometric Data in Wyoming

Wyoming does not have a state biometric-privacy statute like Illinois’ BIPA or Washington’s CUBI. There is no law requiring businesses to get written consent before capturing or storing a voiceprint, no limit on how long the voiceprint can be kept, and no requirement to publish a retention schedule. The only biometric-related rule in Wyoming is a criminal law against identity theft that punishes someone who misuses another person’s biometric data for fraud; it does not restrict a company’s own collection of a customer’s voiceprint when the customer participates in the enrollment. Wyoming’s data-breach-notification law also does not treat biometric data as “personal identifying information,” so a biometric data breach would not trigger the state’s notice requirements. For a Wyoming business using voice-ID login, none of these extra steps are required by state law.

Wyoming’s wiretap statute, found at Wyoming Statutes sections 7-3-701 through 7-3-712, allows any person who is part of a conversation to record it without telling the others. The core rule is in section 7-3-702(b)(iv): “Any person from intercepting an oral, wire or electronic communication where the person is a party to the communication or where one (1) 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 applies the same way whether the conversation is in person, on the phone, or over another electronic channel. There is no special rule for voiceprints or biometric data; the one-party-consent rule covers capturing a voiceprint during an active enrollment session where the user is speaking.

Not every spoken word counts as an “oral communication” under the statute. Section 7-3-701(a)(xi) defines “oral communication” as “any oral communication uttered by a person who reasonably expects and circumstances justify the expectation that the communication is not subject to interception.” If a person speaks in a loud public dispute, addresses a crowd, or otherwise speaks in circumstances where no reasonable expectation of privacy exists, the law does not treat that speech as an “oral communication” at all. Because it is outside the statutory definition, no consent is required to record it. Courts have not issued a Wyoming appellate decision that tests this boundary line, so the safest approach is to avoid recording any speech that could plausibly be seen as private.

Wyoming’s wiretap statute contains no home-specific exception. Section 7-3-702(b)(iv) applies the one-party-consent rule uniformly regardless of location, so recording inside a residence is permitted if the recorder is a party to the conversation and the communication meets the statutory definition of “oral communication.” However, a separate voyeurism statute, W.S. 6-4-304, criminalizes photographing, filming, or recording a person without consent in a place where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a bathroom or changing room, or through means intended to view under or through clothing. This statute is not part of the wiretap act and was not the focus of the research, but it remains a distinct legal risk for recording inside genuinely private spaces. No Wyoming appellate decision has squarely addressed whether the absence of a home-specific carve-out in the wiretap statute creates exposure under the voyeurism law, so caution is warranted when recording in enclosed private settings.

Wyoming’s wiretap statute governs the interception of “oral, wire or electronic communication,” and its operative definitions in W.S. 7-3-701 are framed in terms of aural content or transmissions over communications systems. Section 7-3-701(a)(ix) defines “intercept” as “the aural OR OTHER acquisition of the contents of any oral, wire or electronic communication,” which encompasses more than sound alone. However, the statute’s definitions of “wire communication” and “electronic communication” require that the communication be carried over a covered system (telephone, radio, data network, etc.) whose contents are being acquired. Silent video capture of a physical scene that is not transmitted over such a system does not fit the statutory definitions of “intercept,” “oral communication,” “wire communication,” or “electronic communication,” and therefore is not restricted by the wiretap statute on this textual basis. A separate voyeurism statute, W.S. 6-4-304, could still restrict video recording in genuinely private settings regardless of audio. No Wyoming case law was found directly confirming this conclusion for a bodycam-style device, so the interpretation rests on statutory text rather than confirmed case law.

Violating Wyoming’s wiretap statute is generally a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $1,000 fine. A lesser misdemeanor tier applies to certain radio portions of cellular, cordless, or paging communications under section 7-3-702(f). If a person is harmed by an unlawful interception, section 7-3-710 authorizes a civil lawsuit for actual damages of at least $1,000 per day of violation, plus punitive damages and attorney’s fees. This private right of action makes it risky to record without clear one-party consent, even though the statute itself is permissive. The criminal penalties apply to the person doing the recording, while the civil lawsuit targets the recorder for damages.

Wyoming is in the Tenth Circuit, which initially declined to recognize a First Amendment right to record police in Frasier v. Evans, 992 F.3d 1003 (10th Cir. 2021), holding only that the right was not clearly established as of the 2014 incident there and never holding that no such right exists. However, the Tenth Circuit later held in Irizarry v. Yehia, 38 F.4th 1282 (10th Cir. 2022) that the First Amendment right to film on-duty police performing their duties in public is clearly established, reversing a grant of qualified immunity and expressly joining the First, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits. For Wyoming businesses and individuals, this means recording police in public while they perform official duties is constitutionally protected. If an officer orders you to stop recording, the safest practice is to comply and seek legal advice rather than risk a confrontation.

Wyoming has not adopted a formal ethics opinion or issued a published advisory opinion addressing whether a lawyer’s undisclosed recording of a conversation violates the Wyoming Rules of Professional Conduct. The only generally applicable provision that could be implicated is Rule 8.4(c), which prohibits conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation. The Wyoming State Bar does not maintain a public archive of numbered ethics opinions, and a full-text search of the current, officially annotated Wyoming Rules of Professional Conduct (effective through August 17, 2026) returned no hits for terms like “surreptitious,” “tape record,” “secretly record,” “wiretap,” or references to ABA Formal Opinion 01-422 or 337. The Congressional Research Service’s 2012 survey on wiretapping and legal ethics lists Wyoming among jurisdictions that “have apparently yet to announce a position” on this question. Absent controlling authority, Wyoming lawyers are generally counseled to treat Rule 8.4(c)’s dishonesty/deceit prohibition as a background risk and to ensure any recording is lawful under Wyoming’s one-party-consent wiretap statute. This is not legal advice.

Because no Wyoming appellate decision construes the “circumstances justify” prong of the “oral communication” definition in a recording-evidence context, the safest approach is to require both physical publicness and an objective non-privacy indicator before treating speech as outside the statute. Treat capture as permitted only if the setting is unambiguously public (open street, park, public sidewalk, transit platform, or similar) AND at least one objective non-privacy indicator is present: speech at normal-to-raised conversational volume, unrelated third parties within easy earshot, or the speaker addressing a group/crowd rather than a single companion. If the speaker lowers their voice noticeably, moves apart from others, turns away, cups a hand near the mouth, steps into a doorway or alcove, or otherwise takes any visible step suggesting an attempt at confidentiality, treat the recording as requiring one-party consent under W.S. 7-3-702(b)(iv). This interpretive default avoids relying on an unsettled statutory premise and aligns with the absence of controlling case law.

Wyoming’s wiretap statute contains no home-specific exception, but the separate voyeurism statute, W.S. 6-4-304, criminalizes recording in places where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as bathrooms or changing rooms, or through means intended to view under or through clothing. Because no Wyoming appellate decision has squarely addressed whether the absence of a home-specific carve-out in the wiretap statute creates exposure under the voyeurism law, treat capture as permitted only if both: the capturing party is a present, active participant in the conversation (clear one-party consent under W.S. 7-3-702(b)(iv) as construed in Almada v. State, 994 P.2d 299 (Wyo. 1999)), and there is no observable indication that any occupant is undressed, in a bathroom or changing area, or otherwise engaged in an activity implicating bodily privacy. If capture would occur inside a residence, bedroom, bathroom, changing area, or other enclosed private space without clear evidence the capturing party is a direct participant, or if any cue suggests exposure of a person’s body or intimate activity, treat the recording as requiring heightened caution under both statutes.