Austria Recording Law (Aufnahmerecht): Conversations, Cameras and Your Rights

Austrian recording law is not one rule but a set of separate legal questions that happen to come up together: is it a crime to make a recording, is it a crime to share it, and does a civil claim survive even when no crime occurred at all. English language search results on this topic tend to collapse all of that into a single American import, "one party consent," which does not describe Austrian law accurately and leaves out real risk.

This hub is the entry point for the site's Austrian recording law section. It orients the framework at a high level and links out to two dedicated pages that go deep: one on recording conversations under § 120 StGB, and one on video surveillance and CCTV under the GDPR. For the wider Austrian legal system this section sits inside, including the courts, the codes and how Austrian statutes are cited, see the Austria overview.

This section is written for the people who actually search these questions in Austria: employees weighing whether to record a difficult meeting, someone thinking about a home security camera or a video doorbell, a neighbour dealing with an intrusive camera next door, and small businesses deciding whether their CCTV setup can survive a complaint. None of what follows is a substitute for advice on a specific situation, but it should tell you which of the three layers actually applies to yours.

Information last verified on 22 July 2026. This page provides general legal information about Austrian law and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case.

The Legal Framework: Two Statutes, Three Layers

Two statutes carry almost everything in this section. § 120 of the Strafgesetzbuch (StGB), Austria's criminal code, is titled misuse of recording or listening devices (Mißbrauch von Tonaufnahme- oder Abhörgeräten) and is the provision that actually governs audio recording and eavesdropping. § 16 of the Allgemeines bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (ABGB), Austria's general civil code, is the broad personality rights clause that Austrian courts have used to build a civil right to one's own spoken word.

Video and image capture sit apart from both of these. Austria's Datenschutzgesetz (DSG) once had its own dedicated paragraphs for video surveillance, sections 12 and 13, but Austrian courts have since held that those paragraphs cannot be applied on their own because they lack a basis in the GDPR. Private cameras today are assessed directly under the GDPR's general principles instead, with § 16 ABGB again available as a separate civil backstop for anyone filmed without justification.

Put together, a recording or filming situation in Austria is really three questions stacked on top of each other: a criminal question about the recording itself, a criminal question about what happens to it afterward, and a civil question that runs independently of both. Clearing one of these does not clear the others.

Why "One Party Consent" Is the Wrong Framing for Austria

It is true that a participant recording their own conversation generally does not commit the core offence in § 120 Abs 1 StGB. The provision requires the recorded words to be non public and not intended for the recorder to hear, and when you are a party to the exchange the other person is, by definition, speaking to you. That textual gap is real, and it is the only layer of this topic that is genuinely straightforward.

It stops being straightforward the moment the recording leaves your own hands. § 120 Abs 2 StGB makes it a separate crime to hand that same recording to a third party or publish it without the speaker's consent, and it applies even where the recording itself was completely lawful to make. The penalty mirrors the core offence: up to one year imprisonment or up to 720 daily fine units (Tagessätze).

A third layer sits underneath both criminal questions and does not disappear even if no crime is ever charged. § 16 ABGB lets the recorded person bring a civil claim for an injunction and deletion, built on the same personality right courts have long recognised for one's own spoken word. This claim does not require a conviction, does not require the recording to have been shared, and can succeed even where the § 120 Abs 1 analysis clears the recorder entirely.

The accurate summary, and the one worth remembering over any one line rule, is this: a party may usually record their own conversation without committing the Abs 1 offence, but sharing or publishing it can be a crime under Abs 2, and a civil claim under § 16 ABGB can follow regardless of the criminal outcome. Not a crime to record does not mean risk free.

Recording Conversations at a Glance

§ 120 StGB has four parts that each answer a different question. Abs 1 is the core recording offence described above, punishable by up to one year imprisonment or up to 720 Tagessätze.

Abs 2 covers disclosure and publication without the speaker's consent, carrying the same penalty range. Abs 2a is a lower, subsidiary offence covering an intercepted or forwarded telecommunications message, capped at three months or 180 Tagessätze, and it only applies where a more serious provision does not already cover the conduct. Abs 3 makes the whole offence an Ermächtigungsdelikt: prosecution requires the authorisation of the injured person, not a private prosecution the victim runs alone.

§ 16 ABGB then supplies the civil track that runs alongside all of this, giving the recorded person an injunction and deletion remedy independent of any criminal outcome. The full statutory text, the day fine mechanics, and the practical difference between an Ermächtigungsdelikt and a private prosecution are all covered on recording conversations, the dedicated page for this topic.

Video Surveillance at a Glance

Austria's DSG still contains sections 12 and 13, written specifically for video surveillance (Bildverarbeitung), and that text has not been repealed. The Bundesverwaltungsgericht, Austria's federal administrative court, ruled in November 2019 that those paragraphs lack a basis in the GDPR and must remain unapplied for periods after 25 May 2018, so the Datenschutzbehörde now reviews private cameras directly under Art. 5 and Art. 6 DSGVO rather than under the DSG's own wording.

The working test under the GDPR is proportionality: a camera owner's legitimate interest in security is weighed against the privacy interest of anyone the camera captures, under Art. 6 Abs 1 lit f DSGVO. A camera limited to your own property is far easier to justify than one that also reaches a neighbour's garden, a shared driveway or a public street, and the 2019 ruling struck down exactly that kind of overreach. Signage and a limited retention period remain expected in practice, now resting on the GDPR's own transparency and storage limitation principles rather than on the DSG's superseded text.

A neighbour or passer by captured by an unjustified camera has two separate options: a complaint to the Datenschutzbehörde on GDPR grounds, and a civil claim under § 16 ABGB for an injunction and deletion. The full detail, including the proportionality test, the signage and retention rules, and worked guidance for a household or small business camera, is covered on video surveillance, the dedicated page for this topic.

Which Page Answers Your Question

If your situation involves audio, a phone call, a meeting, or a conversation someone recorded or wants to record, the recording conversations page works through § 120 StGB in full, including who can bring a case and what the day fine penalties actually mean in practice.

If your situation involves a camera, a video doorbell, or a CCTV system, whether it is your own or a neighbour's, the video surveillance page works through the GDPR proportionality test, signage duties and retention limits in full, along with the civil claim available against an overreaching camera.

Both pages share the same underlying civil law backstop under § 16 ABGB, and neither topic is well served by treating Austria as a blanket one party consent jurisdiction. The detail genuinely changes the answer.

A situation can also involve both layers at once. A camera with a built in microphone, for example, raises the video questions covered on the video surveillance page and, separately, the audio recording questions covered under § 120 StGB, since capturing someone's voice is not automatically covered by the same analysis as capturing their image. Where a device does both, treat the two questions independently rather than assuming that clearing one clears the other.