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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Posts
    4

    Default Recording Yourself in Contexts Where You Might Record Others Without Their Consent

    My question involves criminal law for the state of: CA and US

    Hi, I have a question about voice audio recording law. I am not sure where the best place is to ask that on this website. It seemed like it could go under this group of topics in civil liberties, although I think it's regulated by the Federal wiretap bill.

    If I try to record, with a hidden mic, my own voice all day but use just the voice sound characteristics, not the speech content or actual words, is it ok to accidentally record someone else's voice who I am talking to as well, or someone near me?

    I am working on a device that can record my own voice all day, 12 hrs +, and analyze how much I talk and how I sound (the vocal characteristics). It will only count the number of words and how fast I talk. It will also measure the pitch and volume characteristics. The data is stored locally on my phone and deleted after analyzing the number of words and vocal characteristics.

    It will be a microphone on my shirt connected to my phone, the microphone might be hidden under a shirt, or it might be visible at my shirt collar, I'm not sure if that makes a difference.
    It will also have an app that will process and count the number of words I speak, but not tell me the content of the speech.

    I am concerned that the device will pick up another person's voice too. I will not know the speech content, but I might pick up how many words they said, or the pitch of their voice, for example, in that limited time frame.

    I am in CA, but I am interested in the entire US as well. I understand there's a law about getting the other person's approval in CA, but does my situation count if the speech content is not recognizable?

    Would this device and app be legal? Thanks for your feed back. I really appreciate it.

    Best,

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Posts
    18,340

    Default Re: Recording Yourself in Contexts Where You Might Record Others Without Their Consen

    It's illegal in CA to record somebody else's voice without their consent. Period.

    If you accidentally get someone else's voice on your tape, edit it out or destroy the tape and never tell anybody you did it.

    Frankly, your whole premise is bogus because you'd have to be talking to yourself all the time for your recording of your own voice to make any sense.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2014
    Posts
    8,238

    Default Re: Recording Yourself in Contexts Where You Might Record Others Without Their Consen

    If the device is not recording the conversations (no words are captured and stored) and it’s just gathering data on word count and voice pitch then there is no violation of the wiretap laws.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    98,846

    Default Re: Recording Yourself in Contexts Where You Might Record Others Without Their Consen

    California's law applies to "confidential communications", which means conversations in which one of the parties has an objectively reasonable expectation that no one is listening in or overhearing the conversation. Thus, for conversations recorded in public places, there's not necessarily a violation of the law -- the question of whether the expectation is objectively reasonable will depend upon the facts of the situation. That's not a 'green light' for actual audio recording -- if you constantly record a replayable form of your conversations and, at times, the conversations occurring around you, it's all-but-inevitable that you're going to end up recording somebody in a context in which they have an objectively reasonable expectation that you're not recording them.

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