In Pennsylvania is it legal to record a telephone call without notifying the other party in cases where you initiate the phone call?

Recording Phone Conversations in PA

Here is input from Contributors:

• PA. state statutes require the consent of all parties when a phone call is recorded. But, the High Court recently ruled persons have no guarantee of privacy when it pertains to phone conversations It had something to do with a wire tape in a drug investigation. Maybe it depends on who is doing the recording and why.

• No. Md. Code Ann., Courts and Judicial Proceedings � 10-402: It is a felony to intercept a wire, oral or electronic communication unless all parties to the communication have consented. But all-party consent will not make the recording legal if there is a criminal or tortious purpose behind it. Disclosing the contents of intercepted communications with reason to know they were obtained unlawfully is a crime as well. Violations of the law are felonies punishable by imprisonment for not more than five years and a fine of not more than $10,000. Civil liability for violations can include the greater of actual damages, $100 a day for each day of violation or $1,000, along with punitive damages, attorney fees and litigation costs. To recover civil damages, however, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant knew it was illegal to tape the communication without consent from all participants. Md. Code Ann., Courts and Judicial Proceedings � 10-410. State courts have interpreted the laws to protect communications only when the parties have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and thus, where a person in a private apartment was speaking so loudly that residents of an adjoining apartment could hear without any sound enhancing device, recording without the speaker's consent did not violate the wiretapping law. Malpas v. Maryland, 695 A.2d 588 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1997); see also Benford v. American Broadcasting Co., 649 F. Supp. 9 (D. Md. 1986) (salesman's presentation in stranger's home not assumed to carry expectation of privacy).

Per http://www.rcfp.org/taping> 3/29/05

• It depends. NO if both paries are in PA. If one party is not in PA and the other party is not, it may be a jurisdictional issue.

Answer

If the recording of a phone conversation is legal in the state in which the call is received then it is irrelevant where the phone call is originating from. Regardless of existing state statutes laws prohibiting the taping of phone conversations are seldom enforceable when they pertain to private issues such as debt collections. Appellate courts in all states have ruled that there can be no reasonable expectations of the caller that any phone conversation is confidential.

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