Is It Illegal to Have Cameras in Bathrooms? (2027)

Yes, in most situations it is illegal to have a camera in a bathroom that other people use: every state and D.C. has a criminal law against secretly recording people who are undressed, or their intimate areas, where they expect privacy (the elements, such as intent, vary by state), and in 22 jurisdictions a hidden camera that records even a clothed person in at least some private settings, such as a bathroom, bedroom or the person's own home, is a crime without any nudity or sexual purpose. On top of those criminal laws, at least five states bar employer cameras in restrooms and locker rooms, several states bar store cameras in customer restrooms or dressing rooms, and a camera microphone brings in wiretap law.

What decides a particular case is the state, the setting (your home, a workplace, a store, a hotel or rental), whether the person recorded consented, and the statute's mental element, such as an intent to invade privacy or a sexual purpose. This page sorts those rules out as of November 6, 2026.

Scope: This page summarizes state criminal and civil laws on cameras in bathrooms, restrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms, plus the federal statutes that apply nationwide, current as of November 6, 2026. City and county ordinances, school and licensing rules, leases, platform policies and employer policies can add limits. For every other camera question, start with our surveillance camera laws by state hub.

Is It Illegal to Have Cameras in Bathrooms? Three Layers of Law

Bathroom cameras are governed by three separate layers of law, and a single camera can break more than one.

The first layer is the criminal voyeurism or privacy statute that every state has. These laws protect the person being recorded, whoever installed the camera and wherever the bathroom is: a home, an office, a gym, a restaurant or a rental. They differ a great deal in their elements, which is why the same camera can be a felony in one state and fall outside the main video statute in the next.

The second layer is setting-specific statutes. A handful of states have laws written for employers (restrooms and locker rooms at work), for stores (customer restrooms, dressing and fitting rooms), and for hotels and short-term rentals. These often apply with no nudity or sexual-purpose element at all.

The third layer is audio. A camera with a working microphone can record conversations, which brings in the federal Wiretap Act and state eavesdropping laws, whatever the video statutes say.

Many statutes reach installing or placing the camera, not only the recording. Maine, New Hampshire, Delaware, Michigan, South Dakota and Utah, for example, bar installing a device in a private place without the consent of the people entitled to privacy there, and in Illinois placing a camera in one of the protected places with intent to record someone without consent is a Class A misdemeanor even before anything is recorded (720 ILCS 5/26-4(a-15), (a-20)).

Which States Make a Hidden Bathroom Camera a Crime Even if No One Is Undressed

The states split into four groups, depending on whether their main hidden-camera crime needs nudity or a sexual purpose. The groups below follow the classification on our surveillance camera laws hub, except that this page lists Arizona, D.C. and Wisconsin separately because their statutes also cover someone using the toilet or bathroom (the hub counts them with the nudity states); each state page has that state's full elements, exceptions and penalties.

1. General private-place laws (14 states). These make it a crime to secretly view, record or install a camera in a private place, with no nudity or sexual-purpose element, though some add a mental element: Arkansas, California (viewing by camera with intent to invade privacy), Connecticut (with malice), Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Dakota (with intent to intrude upon or interfere with the occupant's privacy), Oklahoma (for an illegitimate or other listed purpose), South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

Some of these spell out that a bathroom counts. Maine defines a private place as "a place where one may reasonably expect to be safe from surveillance, including, but not limited to, changing or dressing rooms, bathrooms and similar places" (17-A M.R.S. 511).

New Hampshire's definition names "public restrooms, locker rooms, the interior of one's dwelling place, or any place where a person's private body parts including genitalia, buttocks, or female breasts may be exposed" (RSA 644:9). Wyoming's voyeurism statute lists "Restrooms," "Baths," "Showers," "Dressing or fitting rooms" and "Bedrooms" as examples, and it is a felony when the person knowingly or intentionally captures an image with a camera (W.S. 6-4-304).

2. Listed-setting laws (8 states). These reach a hidden camera without nudity, but only in listed places. Five of them name bathrooms or restrooms:

• Illinois: knowingly making a video record or transmitting live video of another person without consent "in a restroom, tanning bed, tanning salon, locker room, changing room, or hotel bedroom" is a Class 4 felony; no nudity or sexual purpose is required (720 ILCS 5/26-4(a)).
• Indiana: knowingly or intentionally peeping, without consent, into an area where an occupant can reasonably be expected to disrobe, "including: (A) restrooms; (B) baths; (C) showers; and (D) dressing rooms," is voyeurism, and a Level 6 felony when done by means of a camera (IC 35-45-4-5).
• New York: intentionally using or installing, or permitting the use or installation of, an imaging device "for no legitimate purpose" to surreptitiously view, broadcast or record a person "in a bedroom, changing room, fitting room, restroom, toilet, bathroom, washroom, shower or any room assigned to guests or patrons in a motel, hotel or inn, without such person's knowledge or consent" is a class E felony (Penal Law 250.45(3)).
• North Carolina: secretly peeping into a room occupied by another person while holding a device that can create images, with intent to create one, is a Class A1 misdemeanor, and a "room" includes a bedroom, rest room, bathroom, shower and dressing room (G.S. 14-202).
• Texas: recording a visual image of a person, without consent and with intent to invade that person's privacy, in a place where a reasonable person would believe they could disrobe in privacy is a state jail felony; "The term includes a bathroom, bedroom, and changing room" (Penal Code 21.15, as amended by HB 1465).

The other three listed-setting states protect people inside a home. Maryland bars placing a camera on the property of a private residence to conduct deliberate surreptitious observation of a person inside, though the rule does not apply to an adult resident or someone with an adult resident's consent, among other exceptions (Crim. Law 3-903). Montana reaches hiding, waiting or loitering in or near a residence, in person or by remote electronic device, to secretly observe or record an occupant (MCA 45-5-223(1)), and Vermont bars surveillance or recording of a person without knowledge and consent in a place "within a home or residence" where the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy (13 V.S.A. 2605(d)).

3. Toilet and bathroom-use laws (2 states and D.C.). In Arizona, D.C. and Wisconsin, the main video crime otherwise turns on nudity, intimate areas or sexual activity, but it also covers someone using the toilet or bathroom, so a hidden bathroom camera can be a crime there even if no one is undressed:

• Arizona covers recording a person without consent "In a restroom, bathroom, locker room, bedroom or other location where the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy and the person is urinating, defecating, dressing, undressing, nude or involved in sexual intercourse or sexual contact," a class 5 felony (A.R.S. 13-3019).
• D.C. makes it a crime to install or maintain an electronic device for the purpose of secretly or surreptitiously observing a person who is "using a bathroom or rest room," is undressed or changing clothes, or is engaging in sexual activity (D.C. Code 22-3531(b)).
• Wisconsin treats an image of a person using the toilet as an "intimate representation": capturing one without consent where the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, knowing or having reason to know the person does not consent, is a Class I felony (Wis. Stat. 942.09).

4. Nudity, intimate-area or sexual-purpose laws (26 states). In Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia, the main video crime requires that the recording capture a nude or undressed person or intimate areas, or be made for a sexual or lewd purpose.

That does not make a bathroom camera safe in those states. A camera in a bathroom is the setup most likely to capture someone undressed, and several of these statutes name bathrooms directly:

• Mississippi makes it a felony to view by camera into a bathroom or other area where the occupant has a reasonable expectation of privacy, with intent to invade the privacy of the people inside, without the consent or knowledge of every person present, and for a lewd, licentious and indecent purpose (97-29-61(1)(b)); Nebraska names restrooms, locker rooms and shower rooms in its undress-based unlawful intrusion offense (28-311.08); and Oregon makes knowingly recording a person in a state of nudity without consent, in a place such as a bathroom, a Class C felony (ORS 163.701).

Ten of these states (Alabama, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, South Carolina and Virginia) also have a peeping or trespass offense with no sexual element, but it generally covers a person on another's property or peering into a dwelling, not someone who plants a camera inside. Civil privacy claims, stalking laws and wiretap laws can apply in every state regardless of group.

Penalties for a Hidden Bathroom Camera

Penalties range from misdemeanors to felonies, and many states raise them for repeat offenses, minor victims or distribution of the images. These examples are taken from each state's page, where the full tiers are listed.

Each of these penalties applies only when every element of that state's offense is met, including the consent and intent elements described above. For the full offense detail in Texas, see Texas voyeurism and hidden camera laws.

Employer Cameras in Restrooms and Locker Rooms (Cal. Labor Code 435, Conn. 31-48b, N.Y. Labor Law 203-c, R.I. 28-6.12-1, W. Va. 21-3-20)

At least five states have a statute written specifically for employers that bars recording or surveillance in restrooms and similar rooms. These were found through statute searches in every state; the list is not proven to be exhaustive. The wording and consequences differ, so they are not one national rule, and a claim that employer restroom cameras are banned "in all 50 states" by an employer statute is not accurate.

California, New York and Rhode Island share a formula: an employer may not cause a recording of an employee in a restroom, locker room or designated changing room "unless authorized by court order," and a recording made in violation may not be used by the employer for any purpose. New York's version also says it does not apply to law enforcement personnel engaged in their authorized duties.

Connecticut and West Virginia bar operating an electronic surveillance device "for the purpose of recording or monitoring the activities" of employees in areas designed for their health or personal comfort, and both list their rooms with "such as," so the named rooms are examples rather than a complete list. Both expressly include employee lounges.

California adds a second rule on January 1, 2027. Labor Code 1561(a), added by AB 1331, provides: "Unless directed by a court order, an employer shall not use a workplace surveillance tool to monitor or surveil employees in a bathroom located in the workplace." Among its exceptions, an employer may check surveillance tools for the one-time entry and exit of workplace bathrooms (1561(b)(3)); an employer is not in violation when an employee voluntarily brings a tool into a bathroom, or brings a badge or personal alarm the employer requires for identification or safety or to open a locked bathroom, if it does not detect or record audio or video and has no embedded or attached artificial intelligence (1561(c)); and the law does not prohibit surveillance tools required by federal law, existing state law, federal regulation or existing state regulation (1564(c)).

Employees may leave surveillance tools on their person behind when entering a bathroom, unless they must remain available during meal or rest periods under federal or state law (1561(b)(1)-(2)), and an employer "may be subject to a penalty of up to five hundred dollars ($500) for each violation" (1563(d)). The new rule covers bathrooms only; Labor Code 435 continues to cover locker rooms and changing rooms (AB 1331).

Outside those five states, the general criminal statutes above reach an employer who hides a camera in a restroom just as they reach anyone else, though in some states, such as Pennsylvania, the crime also requires a sexual purpose (18 Pa.C.S. 7507.1). For notice laws, audio at work and union rules, see workplace surveillance camera laws.

Schools and Government Buildings

A few states write the restroom line into their rules for public bodies. Iowa bars state and local government bodies from using monitoring devices in restrooms, locker rooms and similar spaces (Iowa Code 27.2).

Delaware lets a school board use video surveillance on public school property, but cameras may never be used where they "would violate a student's reasonable expectation of privacy including, but not limited to, locker rooms, areas where students may disrobe and lavatories" (14 Del. C. 4121). Alabama's special education classroom cameras may not monitor a restroom or changing area, apart from incidental coverage caused by the room's layout (Ala. Code 16-39-13).

The federal video voyeurism law matters mainly in federal settings. It applies to a person "in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States" who intends "to capture an image of a private area of an individual without their consent" where the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, with a fine, up to one year in prison, or both (18 U.S.C. 1801(a)). "Private area" means "the naked or undergarment clad genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or female breast." In practice that means places under special federal jurisdiction, such as many military bases and some other federal lands and buildings, not every piece of federal property, and not ordinary homes or businesses.

Customer Restrooms in Stores, Restaurants and Gyms

No federal law we found regulates where a business may point a video-only camera on its own premises, so customer restrooms are a matter of state law. The criminal statutes above apply to business owners and their employees like anyone else, and several states add rules aimed at stores:

• Florida: it is unlawful "for any merchant to directly observe or make use of video cameras or other visual surveillance devices to observe or record customers in the merchant's dressing room, fitting room, changing room, or restroom when such room provides a reasonable expectation of privacy," a first-degree misdemeanor (Fla. Stat. 877.26).
• Maryland: a person may not conduct visual surveillance of an individual in "a dressing room or rest room in a retail store" without consent; no sexual purpose is required, owning the store is not a defense, and the penalty is up to 30 days, a fine up to $1,000, or both (Crim. Law 3-901).
• New York: an owner or manager may not knowingly permit a viewing device to be installed or maintained "for the purpose of surreptitiously observing the interior of any fitting room, restroom, toilet, bathroom, washroom, shower, or any room assigned to guests or patrons in a motel, hotel or inn" (Gen. Bus. Law 395-b).
• Massachusetts and Rhode Island: a store selling clothing may not keep a video camera in a dressing room (G.L. c. 93, s. 89; R.I. Gen. Laws 11-41-26).

Locker rooms get their own rules in some states. Wisconsin makes it a crime to intentionally capture a representation of a nude or partially nude person in a locker room while present there, and it requires anyone who owns or operates a locker room to adopt a written policy on which recording devices may be used there (Wis. Stat. 942.09(5) and 175.22). Utah treats a public restroom as a place with a reasonable expectation of privacy for its recorded voyeurism offense (76-12-307(4)), and that offense is a third degree felony when committed in a sex-designated privacy space, such as a restroom, locker room or shower room, not designated for the actor's sex (Utah Code 76-12-307).

A camera in a hallway outside a restroom is a different question from one inside it. These statutes generally turn on a place where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy, so a visible camera covering a corridor everyone uses is not the same case as a lens aimed into stalls, urinals or changing areas.

Hotels, Airbnb and Rental Bathrooms

Several state laws reach hotel and rental bathrooms directly. New York's unlawful surveillance statute and General Business Law 395-b both name guest rooms in a motel, hotel or inn, and Illinois's video statute names a hotel bedroom.

Louisiana bars an owner or lessor of a short-term rental from installing or using a concealed or disguised camera on the premises, except in common areas after posting a prescribed sign, and "common area" excludes bedrooms and bathrooms (La. R.S. 21:61). Oregon gives a guest a civil action against a transient lodging provider who, without consent, records images or audio of the guest while the guest occupies a private space, including a bathroom (ORS 30.831).

Airbnb's own policy bans indoor cameras, with a narrow exception for some licensed listings in Japan. That is a company rule, not law, but it gives a guest a reason to report a camera to the platform as well as to police.

For long-term rentals, no state landlord-tenant law we reviewed addresses landlord cameras directly, so a camera in a tenant's bathroom falls under the criminal statutes above. California says expressly that being the victim's cohabitant, landlord, tenant or employer is no defense to its offense of using a concealed camera to secretly record, without the person's consent or knowledge, a person who may be undressed in a bedroom, bathroom or similar room, for the purpose of viewing the person's body or undergarments and with the intent to invade the person's privacy (Penal Code 647(j)(3)). In North Dakota, a federal appeals court opinion recounts that a landlord was charged after a pinhole camera he admitted placing was found in his tenant's bathroom. See landlord security camera laws for the rest of the landlord picture.

Cameras in Your Own Home's Bathroom: Guests, Roommates and Family

Owning the home does not by itself take a camera outside these laws. The statutes protect the person recorded, and many of them have no exception for a homeowner:

• Maine's violation-of-privacy statute has no exception for the owner of the home.
• New Hampshire's private-place definition includes "the interior of one's dwelling place," and the statute has no express exception for a homeowner's own cameras.
• Delaware's private-place device offense (11 Del. C. 1335(a)(2)) has no exception for your own home, and Hawaii's (HRS 711-1111(1)(d)) has no written exception for a homeowner or household member.
• Illinois makes it a Class 4 felony to video record another person without consent in that person's own residence (720 ILCS 5/26-4(a-5)), which can include someone who lives in the same home.

Some states do carve out ordinary home security monitoring. Michigan exempts "security monitoring in a residence if conducted by or at the direction of the owner or principal occupant of that residence unless conducted for a lewd or lascivious purpose" (MCL 750.539d(2)). D.C. exempts "security monitoring in one's own home" (22-3531(e)(2)), though the same statute makes it a crime to secretly observe someone using a bathroom. Arkansas exempts security monitoring operated by or at the direction of the occupant of a residence (5-16-101(d)), but we found no Arkansas decision applying that exemption, and a camera hidden in a guest bathroom is hard to describe as security monitoring.

The safer approach in a shared home is to keep cameras in common areas, out of any bathroom or bedroom that a guest, roommate, live-in caregiver or family member uses, and to turn off the microphone. A camera that records a child undressing deserves particular care: many states raise the penalty when the person recorded is a minor, including California, Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, Virginia and Wisconsin (see each state page for the tiers). For cameras elsewhere in the home, see nanny cam laws.

Audio Recording in Restrooms (18 U.S.C. 2511)

A bathroom camera with a working microphone raises a separate legal problem. The federal Wiretap Act makes it a crime to intentionally intercept "any wire, oral, or electronic communication" (18 U.S.C. 2511(1)(a)), and an "oral communication" is one "uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation."

Federal law is a one-party consent law: a private person may record "where such person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception," unless the recording is made "for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act" (2511(2)(d)). A bathroom microphone can record people talking when the camera's owner is not part of the conversation, and if no participant consented, that is outside the exception. The federal penalty is a fine, up to five years in prison, or both, and a person whose conversation is unlawfully recorded can sue, and the court may award the greater of actual damages plus the violator's profits or statutory damages of "$100 a day for each day of violation or $10,000" (18 U.S.C. 2520).

State law adds to that. Thirteen states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington) require every party's consent to record at least one major type of conversation; Connecticut and Nevada apply that rule only to phone calls, Oregon only to in-person conversations, and Delaware has two conflicting statutes.

Maryland's highest court affirmed a wiretap conviction in Deibler v. State (2001), where a man hid "a camera with audio accompaniment" in the bathroom of a friend's home and recorded the friend's aunt in the shower (Deibler v. State, 365 Md. 185).

Among the employer statutes, California's and Rhode Island's cover audio and video, Connecticut's names the recording of sound, and New York's covers video only, so audio at a New York workplace falls to the wiretap laws. For the consent rules in general, see the US recording laws guide.

Do Signs or Consent Make a Bathroom Camera Legal?

Most bathroom-camera crimes turn on the lack of consent of the person recorded, so consent from the camera's owner or the property owner does not help. Some statutes set a specific standard: Georgia's requires "the consent of all persons observed," and D.C.'s recording offense turns on the person's "express and informed consent."

A posted sign is a weak substitute for consent, and in Texas it is expressly not one. Under Penal Code 21.15(e), a sign indicating that a person is being photographed or recorded "is not sufficient to establish the person's consent" to a recording in a bathroom, bedroom, changing room or other place where a person could disrobe in privacy (Penal Code 21.15).

A few states go the other way in limited settings. Arizona, D.C., Florida, Georgia, Minnesota and New York, among others, treat a posted notice as an exception or defense to some of their hidden-camera crimes, usually for a business security system.

Minnesota's matters most for bathrooms: paragraphs (c) through (e) of its interference-with-privacy statute, including the intimate-parts recording offense that names bathrooms and locker rooms, do not apply in a commercial establishment whose owner has posted conspicuous signs warning that the premises are under surveillance (609.746, subd. 1(k)); its under-clothing offense has no such exception. A sign exception in one statute does not create an exception to a different one, such as an employer restroom statute or a store dressing-room law, and Massachusetts separately bans video cameras in clothing-store dressing rooms. For the state-by-state sign rules, see security camera sign laws by state.

What to Do If You Find a Camera in a Bathroom

Your safety and the evidence come first. These are practical steps, not legal requirements:

1. Leave it where it is. Consider photographing the device in place, with its surroundings and the date, rather than removing or unplugging it, so police can see how it was set up.
2. Write down what you know. Note the location, when you used the room, who controls the space, and any messages or listing details that mention cameras.
3. Report it. Call 911 if you are in danger; otherwise use the local police non-emergency line. At work, you can also report it to human resources or a union representative; at a rental, also report it to the platform.
4. Keep your own records. Save receipts, booking confirmations, screenshots and the names of anyone you told, and keep copies off any shared device.

Civil claims may be available alongside a criminal case. Most states recognize a claim for intrusion upon seclusion, which requires an intrusion that would be highly offensive to a reasonable person; New York and Virginia do not recognize it as a common-law tort. In Friedman v. Martinez (2020), the New Jersey Supreme Court held that a person who used a private space, such as a bathroom, while a hidden camera was there can sue for intrusion upon seclusion without proving she was actually recorded (Friedman v. Martinez).

Some statutes give their own civil remedy: New York Labor Law 203-c and Rhode Island 28-6.12-1 (damages, attorney's fees and injunctions for employees), Maryland's video statutes (actual damages and reasonable attorney's fees), Oregon ORS 30.831 (lodging guests, compensatory damages and attorney fees within two years), Louisiana R.S. 21:61 (short-term rental guests, actual damages, attorney fees and punitive damages), and 18 U.S.C. 2520 (unlawfully recorded conversations, within two years of a reasonable opportunity to discover the violation). Deadlines and proof rules vary, so talk to a lawyer promptly if you are considering a claim.

What Changes in Bathroom Camera Law in 2027

Status as of November 6, 2026. Among the enacted changes our 51-state review found, one taking effect in 2027 is aimed at bathroom cameras:

Pending bills, status as of November 6, 2026: Illinois HB 4262, the Protecting Children from Hidden Cameras Act, which would create a civil action over hidden-camera video of children, passed the House 112-0 on April 15, 2026 and was referred to the Senate Assignments committee on April 28, 2026; it has not been enacted (bill status). New York S524-A, which would create new voyeurism offenses, passed the Senate and is in an Assembly committee. Neither is law.

Several changes that touch bathroom cameras took effect in 2025 and 2026 and are already law:

• Texas widened Penal Code 21.15 from a "bathroom or changing room" to any place where a reasonable person would believe they could disrobe in privacy, including a bedroom, and added sex offender registration, for offenses on or after September 1, 2025 (HB 1465).
• Tennessee made unlawful photography under 39-13-605(a)(1) or (a)(3) a Class E felony for acts on or after July 1, 2025 (2025 Public Chapter 474).
• North Carolina made it a Class I felony to knowingly create an image of a person's private area, with the intent to create it without the person's consent, under circumstances in which the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy; no sexual purpose is required, from December 1, 2025 (14-202(e1)).
• Virginia extended 18.2-386.1 on July 1, 2026 to an obscene image of a nonconsenting person who is not exposed, in a restroom, dressing room, locker room, hotel room, bedroom or similar location (Va. Code 18.2-386.1).
• Oklahoma made its clandestine-camera offense (21 O.S. 1171(B)) a Class B5 felony on November 1, 2026 (HB 4104).

Where to Get Help

If you find a hidden camera in a bathroom, report it to local police, and ask about the prosecutor's victim-witness unit or your state's victim-services office, which can explain next steps if charges follow. If the camera was at work, a union representative, your state labor department or, in California from January 1, 2027, the Labor Commissioner may also be involved.

For a civil claim, your state court's self-help center explains small claims and protective orders, your state or local bar association's lawyer referral service can connect you with a lawyer who handles privacy cases, and legal aid organizations help people who qualify by income.

This page is general legal information about United States laws on cameras in bathrooms, restrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms, current as of November 6, 2026. It is not legal advice. For advice about your situation, talk with a lawyer licensed in your state.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it illegal to have cameras in bathrooms?

Usually, when other people use the bathroom. Every state and D.C. has a criminal law against secretly recording people who are undressed, or their intimate areas, where they expect privacy, though the elements, such as intent, vary by state. In 22 jurisdictions a hidden camera that records even a clothed person in at least some private settings, such as a bathroom, is a crime without any nudity or sexual purpose. Arizona, D.C. and Wisconsin also make it a crime to record someone using the toilet or bathroom without consent, with no nudity element.

Can a business put cameras in a public restroom?

A camera that records people in restroom stalls or while undressing can be a crime under state voyeurism laws, and some states have laws aimed at stores: Florida bars merchants from watching or recording customers by camera in a restroom that provides a reasonable expectation of privacy (877.26), and Maryland bars visual surveillance of a person in a retail store's restroom without consent (Crim. Law 3-901). A visible camera in a hallway outside a restroom is a different question from one inside it.

Can my employer put cameras in the bathroom or locker room?

At least five states bar it by statute: California (Labor Code 435), Connecticut (31-48b), New York (Labor Law 203-c, video), Rhode Island (28-6.12-1) and West Virginia (21-3-20). From January 1, 2027, California Labor Code 1561 also bars employers from using workplace surveillance tools to monitor employees in a workplace bathroom unless a court order directs it, with limited exceptions, such as a one-time entry and exit check. Elsewhere, general hidden-camera crimes can apply, though some require nudity or a sexual purpose.

Is it illegal to have a camera in your own bathroom at home?

A camera that records guests, roommates, a caregiver or family members in a bathroom they use can be a crime even in your own home. Statutes in states such as Maine, New Hampshire, Delaware and Hawaii have no exception for a homeowner, while Michigan, D.C. and Arkansas exempt certain owner or occupant security monitoring. The safer approach is to keep cameras out of bathrooms other people use.

Does a sign make a bathroom camera legal?

Not in Texas, where a posted sign 'is not sufficient to establish the person's consent' to recording in a bathroom or other private place (Penal Code 21.15(e)). A few states treat a posted notice as an exception to some hidden-camera crimes for certain business security systems, so the answer depends on the state and the statute.

Can a camera in a bathroom record audio?

A bathroom microphone that records conversations the camera's owner is not part of, without a participant's consent, can violate the federal Wiretap Act (18 U.S.C. 2511) and state eavesdropping laws. Federal law allows a party to record unless the purpose is to commit a criminal or tortious act. In 13 all-party states, even conversations you take part in may need everyone's consent, with partial rules in Connecticut, Nevada, Oregon and Delaware.

Is there a federal law against bathroom cameras?

The federal video voyeurism law (18 U.S.C. 1801) makes it a crime to intentionally capture an image of a person's private area without consent where the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, but only within special federal jurisdiction, such as many military bases. Cameras in ordinary homes and businesses are governed by state law. The federal Wiretap Act covers audio everywhere.

Can Airbnb or hotel hosts have cameras in bathrooms?

Louisiana bars short-term rental owners from concealed or disguised cameras except in common areas, which exclude bathrooms (R.S. 21:61), Oregon lets lodging guests sue a provider who records them in a private space such as a bathroom (ORS 30.831), and New York's laws name hotel and motel rooms. Airbnb's own policy also bans indoor cameras, with a narrow exception for some licensed listings in Japan.

What should I do if I find a hidden camera in a bathroom?

Consider photographing it where it is rather than removing it, write down when and where you found it, and report it to police (call 911 if you are in danger). You may also have a civil claim, such as intrusion upon seclusion; in New Jersey, a person who used a bathroom while a hidden camera was there can sue without proving she was actually recorded (Friedman v. Martinez, 2020).

What is the penalty for a hidden camera in a bathroom?

It depends on the state and the elements met. Examples: in Texas, a state jail felony (180 days to 2 years, up to $10,000) with sex offender registration for offenses on or after September 1, 2025; in New York, a class E felony (up to 4 years); in Illinois, a Class 4 felony (1 to 3 years, up to $25,000); in New Hampshire, a class A misdemeanor (up to 1 year, $2,000). Many states raise penalties for repeat offenses, minor victims or distribution.