Compliant use
Recording people, lawfully
Scriben records conversations, and recording other people is governed by law that changes at state lines and gets stricter inside a profession. This page is the practical version: which rule applies where you are, the words to actually say, and what your professional obligations add on top. It is written to be useful before a meeting, not after a complaint.
§This is general information, not legal advice, and we are not your lawyers. Laws change and the facts of your situation matter. For anything consequential, ask a lawyer admitted where you are.
The framework
There are two regimes, and you need to know which you are in.
Every US recording question starts here. Federal law sets a floor; your state can be stricter, and thirteen or so of them are.
01 / One-party consent
One person in the conversation has to agree to the recording, and you count. If you are in the conversation, you may record it. This is the federal rule under 18 U.S.C. § 2511 and the rule in most states. It is the permissive end, and it is still not permission to do whatever you like: professional duties, employment policy and contracts all apply on top.
02 / All-party consent
Everyone in the conversation has to agree. Recording without that can be a crime, and in several states a separate civil claim, regardless of how harmless your purpose was. The list below is where this applies.
03 / Which one governs when they differ
If you are in one state and the other person is in another, assume the stricter rule applies. This comes up on every call with someone in California, and assuming your own state’s rule travels with you is the single most common way professionals get this wrong.
Where everyone has to agree
The all-party consent states.
These are the states commonly classified as requiring all parties to consent. Several of them are more complicated than a list can show, so the complications are set out next to them rather than flattened out.
- The straightforward ones
- California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington. Everyone in the conversation has to agree, in person and on the phone.
- Massachusetts
- Stricter than most, and differently shaped: the statute is aimed at secret recording specifically. Recording openly, with the device in plain view and the fact stated, is the behaviour the law is built around.
- Oregon
- Splits by medium. Phone calls are treated one way and in-person conversations another, with in-person carrying a notice requirement. Do not assume the phone rule covers the meeting.
- Nevada and Michigan
- Both have statutes that read as all-party and case law that has complicated them, in opposite directions. Treat both as all-party and you will not be the test case.
- Connecticut
- Criminal law and civil liability do not line up here. In-person and telephone recording sit under different provisions, and the civil exposure is broader than the criminal rule. Get consent.
Compiled 14 September 2026 as general orientation, not as a legal citation. Recording statutes are amended and courts reinterpret them. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press maintains a free, per-state Reporter’s Recording Guide with the actual statutory text for each state, and it is the thing to check before you rely on any summary, including this one.
The part people skip
How to actually ask.
The reason people record covertly is almost never malice. It is that they cannot think of a natural sentence, so they say nothing. Here are the sentences.
Say it before it starts, not after
Consent given after the recording began does not cover the part that already happened. Ask at the top, while people are still settling in, and you never have to decide what to do with the first four minutes.
Say what it is and what it is for
“Before we start — this pen records, and I use it to write up my notes afterwards so I’m not typing while you talk. Is that all right with you?” That is the whole script. It names the device, the purpose and the ask, and it takes six seconds.
Wait for an actual answer
A pause is not a yes. Silence is not a yes. Wait until someone says something. If anyone in the room says no, stop, and do not record. In an all-party state that is not a courtesy, it is the law, and one objection is enough.
Leave a trace that you asked
Record the consent itself, or note it in the file afterwards: who was present, what you asked, what they said. The dispute, if it ever comes, is about whether you asked. A contemporaneous line in the note settles it and costs you nothing today.
Re-ask when the room changes
Someone joins halfway through and they have not consented to anything. New person, new ask. The same applies if the meeting moves to a different subject that the original consent plainly did not cover.
On top of the law
What your profession adds.
The state rule is the floor. If you hold a professional licence or a duty of confidentiality, more applies to you than applies to the general public, and the state being one-party does not relieve any of it.
- Lawyers
- Recording a client conversation touches confidentiality and, in several states, specific ethics opinions on recording without disclosure. Recording an opposing party or a witness raises its own questions entirely. Client consent should be informed and, for anything that could become evidence, in the file. Check your own state bar’s guidance rather than the general rule.
- Doctors and clinicians
- The recording and anything derived from it is protected health information the moment it exists. That pulls in HIPAA, your organisation’s policy, and a patient consent that is documented rather than assumed. Many health systems require recording to be logged in the chart. A clinic deployment should be set up with your compliance officer, not configured by an individual clinician on a personal device.
- Sales and client-facing work
- Your employer almost certainly has a policy, and it may be stricter than the state you are sitting in. Many enterprise buyers also have contractual terms about recording their staff, which means your customer’s rule can bind you even where your own state would not. Ask once, and record the answer in the CRM.
- Students and researchers
- Lecture recording is usually governed by the institution rather than the state, and permission often sits with the instructor. Anything that counts as human subjects research has an ethics process attached to it that starts before you record, not after.
- Outside the United States
- Assume all-party consent and work back from there. The UK, the EU under GDPR, Canada, Australia and most of the rest treat a voice recording as personal data with a lawful-basis requirement attached, and several treat covert recording of a conversation as a criminal matter. This page is written for the US and should not be read as covering anywhere else.
Our side of it
What Scriben does so this is easier.
A device that makes disclosure awkward is a device that encourages people to skip it. These are deliberate.
01 / It is visible and it is doing something else
The pen is on the table because you are writing with it, and it is writing in real ink the whole time. Nothing has to be produced, unfolded or aimed at anyone, so the sentence “this pen records” is a normal thing to say rather than a moment.
02 / The recording indicator is not hideable
There is no silent mode, no way to disable the light, and no configuration that makes the device look like it is not recording when it is. We will not build one.
03 / Deleting is real deletion
Any recording, and everything derived from it, can be deleted from the app. Your recordings are not used to train models, ours or our providers’. If someone withdraws consent afterwards, you can act on that properly.
04 / Using it on someone who has not been told breaks our terms
This is written into the Terms of Service you agreed to, not just into guidance. It is a condition of use, and it is the answer to anyone who asks what stops a Scriben user from recording them covertly.
Questions
The ones we actually get.
Do I need consent if I am just recording my own notes?
What if I am in a one-party state and they are in an all-party state?
Is a notice in my email signature or calendar invite enough?
Someone asks me to stop recording mid-conversation. What then?
Can I record a phone call with the pen?
Does Scriben tell the other person for me?
In writing
Where the obligation actually lives.
This page is guidance. The binding version is section 5 of the Terms of Service, which every Scriben user agrees to: you use Scriben in line with the recording laws that apply to you, and you obtain consent where consent is required. Our approach to what happens to a recording once it exists is set out on the trust page and in the Privacy Policy.