Generally you may take pictures of anything you can see standing in a place that you have a right to be at the time, though there are some exceptions to that, like “peeping tom” laws that would restrict viewing into parts of a private home. So it is unlikely that recording the video riding around on your bike would cause much trouble. The law on audio recording conversations is, however, more complex. Federal law generally prohibits recording of private conversations unless the person doing the recording is a party to that conversation or has the consent of a party to the conversation. California state law requires the consent of all parties to conversation in order to record it. However, conversations that occur in public places or in places where the parties could reasonably expect to be overheard are exempt. So if you record audio, you better either (1) get the consent of everyone before recording or (2) make sure that the conversation is occurring in some public place or place where the parties could reasonably expect to be overheard. If you get it wrong you may be criminally prosecuted for recording the conversation. Note that the type of device you use to record the conversation really doesn’t matter here.

