Two-party consent
Two-party consent, more precisely all-party consent, is a rule under some US state laws that a phone call may be recorded only if everyone on the call has agreed. Under federal law and in most states, the consent of one participant is enough.
Also called: all-party consent, dual consent, call recording consent
The federal Wiretap Act allows a participant in a conversation to record it without telling the others. Around a dozen states go further and require every party’s consent, California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Washington among them; the exact list and the definitions vary and change, so the current state law is the authority.
Consent does not have to be a signed form. In all-party states it is usually obtained by announcing the recording at the start of the call, the familiar “this call may be recorded”, after which a caller who stays on the line is treated as having agreed. The announcement must come before anything is captured.
A call between two states raises the question of which law applies, and courts have applied the stricter one. Businesses that record calls from anywhere in the US therefore tend to announce on every call rather than work out each caller’s location, which is why the disclosure has become the norm regardless of state.