Georgia

Georgia Recording Laws (2026): One-Party Audio, All-Party Video

By Recording Law Editorial TeamPublished June 5, 202613 min read

Georgia applies a split consent standard: audio recording requires only one-party consent under O.C.G.A. § 16-11-66(a), meaning any participant can record without telling anyone else. Video recording in a private place out of public view requires the consent of all persons observed under O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(2). The Georgia Supreme Court anchored that split in State v. Cohen, 302 Ga. 616 (2017). Illegal recording is a felony carrying up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, and a civil wrong.

Georgia recording law at a glance

Question	Answer
Audio consent rule	One-party (O.C.G.A. § 16-11-66(a))
Video in a private place out of public view	All-party (O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(2))
Video in a public place	Generally permitted; statute applies to private places only
Criminal penalty	Felony, 1 to 5 years and/or up to $10,000 (O.C.G.A. § 16-11-69)
Civil remedy	Common-law privacy torts (intrusion, public disclosure); punitives under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-5.1
Hidden cameras / voyeurism	All-party consent required in private places; § 16-11-62(2)
Recording police in public	Protected under First Amendment per Smith v. City of Cumming (11th Cir. 2000)

For a full list of states that share Georgia's audio one-party rule, see one-party consent states.

Recording in-person conversations in Georgia

Georgia's audio consent rule lives in O.C.G.A. § 16-11-66(a): "Nothing in Code Section 16-11-62 shall prohibit a person from intercepting a wire, oral, or electronic communication where such person is a party to the communication or one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception." If you are in the conversation, you can record it.

The Georgia Supreme Court established the foundational participant-recording rule in Mitchell v. State, 239 Ga. 3, 235 S.E.2d 509 (1977), holding that a party to a conversation does not commit criminal eavesdropping by recording or divulging it. That principle was later codified into § 16-11-66(a) and remains good law.

The prohibition on clandestine audio recording sits in O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(1): it is unlawful to clandestinely overhear, transmit, or record the private conversation of another originating in any private place. The § 16-11-66(a) one-party exception is the gateway out of that prohibition for participants and anyone with a participant's prior consent. Outside a private place, such as on a public street or at a public meeting, the statute does not reach the recording at all.

One important carve-out involves minors. Under § 16-11-66(b), recording a telephone or electronic communication to which a child under 18 is a party requires either a superior-court order or a parent or guardian's prior consent. The Georgia Court of Appeals held in Bishop v. State, 241 Ga. App. 517, 526 S.E.2d 917 (1999), that a minor alone lacks the legal capacity to consent under the statute, even at older ages. A separate parental-monitoring carve-out in § 16-11-66(d) allows a parent to monitor a minor's calls or electronic communications from within the family home for the welfare of the child.

top edge of digital recorder peeking from a shirt breast pocket

Recording phone calls in Georgia

The one-party consent rule of O.C.G.A. § 16-11-66(a) applies fully to phone calls. A Georgia caller who is a party to the call may record without telling the other person.

The complication arises with interstate calls. When the other party is in an all-party-consent state, the safer approach is to comply with the stricter state and get consent on the record before recording. All-party (or functional all-party) jurisdictions for audio include California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington. For the full state-by-state breakdown, see two-party consent states.

For Georgia businesses, best practice is a recorded preamble at the start of each call ("This call may be recorded for quality assurance and training purposes") because customers may be calling from stricter states. That notice provides implied consent and covers the all-party states.

For a deeper treatment, see Georgia Phone Call Recording Laws.

smartphone showing a clean audio waveform on a wooden surface

Hidden cameras, doorbells, and nanny cams

Video recording in Georgia runs through O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(2), which prohibits using any device, without the consent of all persons observed, to observe, photograph, or record activities in a private place out of public view. The statute carves out four main exceptions: (A) lawful security devices used by an owner or occupier to monitor their own property; (B) owner monitoring of a residence's curtilage; (C) law-enforcement surveillance in an official capacity; and (D) monitoring of incarcerated persons by correctional officers (except attorney-client consultations).

An outward-facing Ring doorbell pointing at a homeowner's own front porch or driveway generally falls within the security-device and curtilage exceptions under § 16-11-62(2)(A) and (B). The statute is designed to permit exactly that use.

A nanny cam in a shared living area (kitchen, living room) is a closer call, but generally permissible when the space is a common area of the homeowner's own home. Cameras placed in private spaces of guests, tenants, or domestic workers (bathrooms, guest bedrooms, an employee's quarters) without all-party consent can violate § 16-11-62(2) and trigger the § 16-11-69 felony penalty.

Audio is a separate trap. Many smart cameras record audio. A camera recording conversations in private spaces without a participant's consent can also violate § 16-11-62(1), even where the security-device exception covers the video. A camera owner who is not a party to the conversation in a guest room cannot rely on the § 16-11-66(a) participant rule. Dashcams are generally lawful: public roadways are not private places under § 16-11-62, and the driver-owner is typically a participant in any in-vehicle conversation.

For sub-page coverage, see Georgia Security Camera Laws and Georgia Voyeurism and Hidden Camera Laws.

a person at a home office desk on a laptop video call, two participant tiles visible on the laptop screen

Penalties for illegal recording in Georgia

Criminal penalties

Any violation of Part 1 (O.C.G.A. §§ 16-11-60 through 16-11-70) is penalized under § 16-11-69 as a felony: 1 to 5 years in prison, a fine up to $10,000, or both. That single penalty schedule covers audio violations under § 16-11-62(1), video violations under § 16-11-62(2), and distribution violations under § 16-11-62(6).

Conduct	Criminal penalty
Clandestine audio recording in a private place, § 16-11-62(1)	Felony, 1 to 5 years and/or up to $10,000
Video recording in a private place without all-party consent, § 16-11-62(2)	Felony, 1 to 5 years and/or up to $10,000
Distribution of unlawfully obtained recordings, § 16-11-62(6)	Felony, 1 to 5 years and/or up to $10,000
Recording a minor's call without required consent, § 16-11-66(b)	Felony (charged via § 16-11-62, penalized via § 16-11-69)
NCII first offense via other means, § 16-11-90	Misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature
NCII first offense posted to pornographic website, § 16-11-90	Felony, 1 to 5 years and/or up to $100,000
NCII second or subsequent offense (other means), § 16-11-90	Felony, 1 to 5 years and/or up to $100,000
NCII second or subsequent offense (pornographic website), § 16-11-90	Felony, 2 to 5 years and/or up to $100,000 (2021 amendment)

Statutory exclusionary rule

O.C.G.A. § 16-11-67 provides that no evidence obtained in violation of Part 1 is admissible in any Georgia court, except to prove a Part 1 violation. This exclusionary rule applies in both civil and criminal cases, and it is broader than the federal Fourth Amendment rule. When § 16-11-66(a) one-party consent applies, the recording is lawfully obtained and § 16-11-67 does not bar admissibility.

Civil remedies

Georgia recognizes the four common-law invasion-of-privacy branches: intrusion upon seclusion, appropriation of likeness, public disclosure of private facts, and false light. The foundational Georgia privacy-tort decision is Pavesich v. New England Life Ins. Co., 122 Ga. 190 (1905). Punitive damages are available under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-5.1 on a clear-and-convincing showing of willful misconduct, malice, or wantonness. The personal-injury statute of limitations under § 9-3-33 is two years. A parallel federal cause of action under the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2520, provides statutory damages.

wooden gavel on a sound block on a judge's bench

Recording the police in Georgia

The Eleventh Circuit established the First Amendment right to record police performing public duties in public in Smith v. City of Cumming, 212 F.3d 1332 (11th Cir. 2000), a case that arose in Cumming, Forsyth County, Georgia. The right is subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. The 11th Circuit covers Georgia, Florida, and Alabama; Smith is binding in Georgia federal courts.

Georgia's recording statute reinforces the same outcome. O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62 applies only to private places, so filming officers on a public street, at a public arrest, or at a public-meeting venue is outside the statute's reach entirely. Recording a traffic stop on a public roadway, an arrest on a public sidewalk, or a police interaction at a public park is protected under both federal and state law.

Practical limits remain: do not physically interfere with police operations, do not trespass to get a better vantage point, and comply with lawful orders to step back to a safe distance. Georgia's Open Meetings Act, O.C.G.A. § 50-14-1, additionally permits visual and sound recording of open meetings of state and local agencies, including city and county commission meetings, school board meetings, and public hearings.

For a deeper treatment, see Georgia Laws on Recording Police.

Special topics in Georgia

Audio vs. video: Georgia's defining split

Georgia is unusual in applying different consent standards to audio and video. The Georgia Supreme Court resolved the question definitively in State v. Cohen, 302 Ga. 616, 807 S.E.2d 861 (2017): the § 16-11-66(a) one-party-consent exception applies to interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications (the audio prong) and does not extend to the § 16-11-62(2) visual-surveillance prong. A person who arranges a covert video recording of a sexual encounter, even with the consent of one participant, can be prosecuted under § 16-11-62(2). Audio one-party consent does not bail anyone out of the all-party video rule.

Workplace recording and the NLRB

An employer who is a party to a workplace audio conversation can record under § 16-11-66(a). Video in private spaces such as restrooms or locker rooms is restricted under § 16-11-62(2). On the federal labor side, the NLRB held in Stericycle, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 113 (2023), that a blanket no-recording handbook rule is presumptively unlawful unless the employer can show a substantial, narrowly tailored business interest. Separately, NLRB Acting General Counsel Cowen issued GC 25-07 (June 25, 2025) treating surreptitious recording of collective-bargaining sessions as a per se NLRA violation; that memo is prosecutorial guidance, not binding Board precedent, and its reach is limited to the bargaining table. An employee who is a participant in a workplace conversation may still record it lawfully under § 16-11-66(a), independent of what the handbook says. For a national treatment, see Can an employer record conversations without consent.

NCII, deepfakes, and sexual extortion

Georgia's primary NCII statute, O.C.G.A. § 16-11-90, prohibits electronically transmitting or posting a photograph or video depicting nudity or sexually explicit conduct of an adult "including a falsely created videographic or still image." The "falsely created" clause was added by the 2020 amendment (eff. Aug. 3, 2020) to capture AI-generated and edited deepfake imagery. Posting to a pornographic website on a first offense is a felony (1 to 5 years, up to $100,000 fine); posting via other means on a first offense is a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature; second or subsequent offenses are felonies. The companion sexual extortion statute, O.C.G.A. § 16-11-92 (enacted 2019, eff. July 1, 2019), is a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature on a first offense and a felony on subsequent offenses. Note: § 16-11-66.1 is the stored-communications warrant-procedure statute, not a recording-consent or extortion provision.

Federal overlay

The federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510 to 2522, sets a one-party-consent floor under § 2511(2)(d). Georgia follows that floor for audio but is stricter for video in private places. The FCC's February 2024 declaratory ruling (FCC 24-17) confirmed that AI-generated voice in calls qualifies as "artificial or prerecorded voice" under the TCPA; a Georgian receiving an AI-cloned-voice scam call has a federal TCPA claim and may record the call under § 16-11-66(a). The FCC's One-to-One Consent Rule (FCC 24-24) was vacated by the Eleventh Circuit (mandate issued April 30, 2025) and is not in force. The federal TAKE IT DOWN Act (signed May 19, 2025; platform compliance May 19, 2026) adds a federal notice-and-takedown remedy for NCII alongside § 16-11-90.

Body-worn cameras and open records

Georgia law-enforcement body-worn-camera and in-vehicle video retention is governed by O.C.G.A. § 50-18-96: 180-day baseline retention, extended to 30 months when the recording is part of a criminal investigation, vehicular accident, detainment or arrest, or use of force. Public access flows through the Open Records Act, O.C.G.A. § 50-18-70 et seq.

Recent legal developments

2022 SB 539 (signed May 2, 2022; eff. July 1, 2022): refined the residence-curtilage and incarcerated-person exceptions to § 16-11-62(2); added paragraph (7) (county health-care-facility patient protections) and the GPS-tracking provision.
2020 amendment to § 16-11-90 (eff. Aug. 3, 2020): added "falsely created videographic or still image" to capture AI deepfake NCII.
TAKE IT DOWN Act (May 19, 2025): federal NCII/deepfake notice-and-takedown; platform compliance May 19, 2026.
FCC 24-24 vacatur: 11th Circuit (Georgia's own circuit) vacated the One-to-One Consent TCPA rule; mandate April 30, 2025; rule removed by FCC via DA 25-621.
NLRB GC 25-07 (June 25, 2025): prosecutorial memo treating surreptitious recording of bargaining sessions as per se NLRA violation; targeted at the bargaining table only.
Georgia AI bills SB 9, SB 78, SB 398, HB 890, HB 478: as of June 2026, none has been confirmed enacted at .gov sources. Do not cite as current Georgia law.

Georgia recording laws in depth

By type of recording

By place or relationship

More Georgia laws

This article is general legal information, not legal advice. Recording laws change and apply differently to each situation. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed Georgia attorney.

More Georgia Laws

Sources and References

O.C.G.A. § 16-11-66(a)(ga.elaws.us)
O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(2)(ga.elaws.us)
State v. Cohen, 302 Ga. 616, 807 S.E.2d 861 (2017)
O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(1)(ga.elaws.us)
O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(2)(A)-(E); 2022 Ga. Laws SB 539(ga.elaws.us)
Mitchell v. State, 239 Ga. 3, 235 S.E.2d 509 (1977)
O.C.G.A. § 16-11-66(b), (d)(ga.elaws.us)
Bishop v. State, 241 Ga. App. 517, 526 S.E.2d 917 (1999)
O.C.G.A. § 16-11-69(ga.elaws.us)
O.C.G.A. § 16-11-67(ga.elaws.us)
Pavesich v. New England Life Ins. Co., 122 Ga. 190 (1905); O.C.G.A. § 51-12-5.1(ga.elaws.us)
O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(1)-(2)(ga.elaws.us)
Georgia O.C.G.A. § 16-11-66(a) plus stricter-state survey (CA Penal Code § 632; FL Stat. § 934.03; 720 ILCS 5/14-2; etc.)(ga.elaws.us)
O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62(2)(A)-(B)(ga.elaws.us)
Stericycle, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 113 (2023)(nlrb.gov).gov
NLRB GC 25-07 (June 25, 2025)(nlrb.gov).gov
Smith v. City of Cumming, 212 F.3d 1332 (11th Cir. 2000)(media.ca11.uscourts.gov).gov
O.C.G.A. § 50-18-96; O.C.G.A. § 50-18-70 et seq.(ga.elaws.us)
18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2522; 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d)(law.cornell.edu)
FCC 24-17 Declaratory Ruling (Feb. 2024); 47 U.S.C. § 227(fcc.gov).gov
Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd. v. FCC, No. 24-10277 (11th Cir. mandate Apr. 30, 2025); FCC DA 25-621(media.ca11.uscourts.gov).gov
O.C.G.A. § 16-11-90 (2020 amendment effective Aug. 3, 2020)(ga.elaws.us)
O.C.G.A. § 16-11-92 (sexual extortion); O.C.G.A. § 16-11-66.1 (stored communications, distinct)(ga.elaws.us)
Georgia SB 9, SB 78, SB 398 (2025-2026 Reg. Sess.); HB 890 (2024); HB 478 (2025-2026)(legis.ga.gov).gov
TAKE IT DOWN Act (signed May 19, 2025; platform compliance May 19, 2026)(congress.gov).gov
O.C.G.A. § 16-11-66; O.C.G.A. § 16-11-62; Stericycle, Inc., 372 NLRB No. 113 (2023)(ga.elaws.us)
FTC v. Ring (2023); 15 U.S.C. § 45 (FTC Act § 5)(ftc.gov).gov
U.S. Dep't of Justice, Justice Manual § 9-7.302(justice.gov).gov
ga.elaws.us
courtlistener.com
uscode.house.gov.gov
uscode.house.gov.gov
legis.ga.gov.gov