Recording Law for Phone & Video Calls in Wyoming

Wyoming follows a one-party-consent rule for phone calls, video calls (Zoom, FaceTime, Teams), and other electronic communications. That means you can record any conversation you are part of without informing the other person. The rule comes from the Wyoming Communication Interception Act, specifically Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 7-3-702(b)(iv), which says you may intercept an oral, wire, or electronic communication if you are a party to the communication or have the prior consent of one party. The statute adds one important limit: you cannot use the recording for a criminal or tortious purpose. This rule applies the same way to phone calls, video calls, and in-person conversations. There is no separate or stricter rule for electronic communications compared to face-to-face talks.

The Wyoming Communication Interception Act covers “oral, wire, or electronic communication.” That includes phone calls, video calls over the internet (Zoom, FaceTime, Teams, Google Meet, etc.), text chats with audio, and any other two-way electronic conversation. The law defines “electronic communication” as any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectronic, or photooptical system. The one-party-consent rule applies to all of these. For example, if you are on a Zoom meeting and you record it, Wyoming law treats that as an electronic communication you are part of, so you may record it without telling the other participants. The Act’s definitions are not limited to sound alone; the statute expressly reaches transmissions of images and data over covered systems, so video components embedded in an electronic communication are included within the scope of the one-party-consent rule.

Even under one-party consent, Wyoming makes it illegal to record for a criminal or tortious purpose. That means you cannot use a recording to commit fraud, extortion, harassment, or any other unlawful act. The criminal penalty for illegal interception is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine up to $1,000, unless the intercepted communication is a cellular, cordless, or paging radio transmission, which is a misdemeanor. You can also be sued in civil court for actual damages of not less than $1,000 per day, plus punitive damages and attorney’s fees. So while you can record a call you’re on, you cannot use that recording to break the law.

Wyoming is in the Tenth Circuit, which now recognizes a clearly established First Amendment right to record on-duty police performing their duties in public. In Irizarry v. Yehia, 38 F.4th 1282 (10th Cir. 2022) (decided July 11, 2022), the court held that this right was clearly established by May 2019, reversing a grant of qualified immunity. An earlier Tenth Circuit case, Frasier v. Evans, 992 F.3d 1003 (10th Cir. 2021) (cert. denied Nov. 1, 2021), had declined to decide the question as of 2014, but Irizarry resolved it going forward. This means you may record police officers carrying out their public duties in an open area like a street or park, as long as you do not interfere with their work.

Wyoming’s wiretap statute defines “intercept” as “the aural or other acquisition of the contents of any oral, wire or electronic communication,” not aural acquisition alone. Silent video that captures only images and no audio does not fall within that definition, so the one-party-consent rule does not apply. However, other laws may still restrict silent video recording in private settings. For example, Wyoming’s voyeurism statute (Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-4-304) makes it unlawful to photograph or film a person without consent in a place where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a bathroom or changing room. On the statutory text, video-only recording is not restricted by the Communication Interception Act; only the audio component of a recording implicates it. No Wyoming case law was found directly confirming this conclusion for a bodycam-style device — this is an inference from the statutory definitions, so treat with medium confidence. So while you can record silent video in public, be careful about recording private spaces.

Imagine you are a Wyoming resident working from home and you join a Teams call with a coworker to discuss a project. You decide to record the call so you can review it later. Under Wyoming’s one-party-consent rule, you may record the call without telling your coworker because you are a party to the conversation. The recording is legal as long as you do not use it for an illegal purpose, such as blackmail or defamation. If your coworker later discovers the recording, they cannot sue you under the wiretap statute because you were a participant. This is a hypothetical example for illustration only; your own situation may differ.

Wyoming’s one-party-consent rule applies to conversations inside homes and other private spaces, but only if the speaker has a reasonable expectation that the communication is not subject to interception. The Wyoming Communication Interception Act 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. There is no home-specific exception in the wiretap act; the same one-party-consent rule and criminal/tortious-purpose exception apply regardless of location. If someone in your home lowers their voice, moves away from others, or otherwise takes steps suggesting an attempt at confidentiality, a court could find they had a reasonable expectation of privacy. The safest approach is to inform the other person or obtain consent before recording inside a private home or similarly enclosed space.