Is Delaware a one-party or all-party consent state?

11 Del. C. § 1335(a)(4), the privacy statute, makes it an offence to intercept "without the consent of all parties thereto" a message by telephone, telegraph, letter or other means of communicating privately, "including private conversation".

11 Del. C. § 2402(c)(4), the wiretap statute, makes it lawful to intercept where the person "is a party to the communication or where one of the parties … has given prior consent".

Both reach in-person conversation as well as telephone and electronic, and § 1335(a)(4) says "private conversation" expressly. A reasonable expectation of privacy is required under § 2401(13). Which standard a court would apply to a given recording is unresolved.

Delaware has no statutory notice mechanism comparable to Connecticut's, and nothing was found on whether verbal notice, continuing to speak, a beep or a calendar-invite line supplies the all-party consent § 1335(a)(4) demands.

§ 1335(a)(4) is a Class A misdemeanor, reported by RCFP at up to one year and $2,300. § 2402(b) is a class E felony with a fine of not more than $10,000; RCFP reports up to five years. Recording someone undressing is a Class G felony.

Private right of action with statutory damages. § 2409 allows actual damages but "not less than liquidated damages computed at the rate of $100 a day for each day of violation or $1,000, whichever is higher", plus punitive damages and fees. Good-faith reliance on a court order is a complete defence.

No rule settles which state's law applies to a conversation spanning two of them, several may apply at once, and courts have reached opposite results on comparable facts. If anyone in the meeting is in Delaware, the practical answer is to satisfy Delaware. The general problem is on the US overview.

Said before the substance starts, so the consent is prior; asking a question, so an answer is on the record rather than inferred from silence; and offering a way out, which is what makes the answer mean anything.

Before we start: I'm recording and transcribing this meeting so I have accurate notes. It runs on my own laptop and nothing is uploaded. Is everyone okay with that? If anyone would rather I didn't, say so now and I'll turn it off.

Then leave a beat for an answer. Longer and shorter versions are on telling people you're recording.

Earkeep records continuously and announces itself to nobody: no bot in the participant list, no banner on anyone else's screen. Where every participant's agreement is what makes the recording lawful, that means the whole of the obligation sits on you saying something, and the app will not remind you.

What it gives you is somewhere to go when the answer is no. A pause from the live edge releases the microphone and the system audio stream, so your operating system's own recording indicator goes dark in front of the person who asked. A meeting on a connected calendar can be marked never-record, so a standing meeting is decided once. And a stretch of the day, or a saved meeting with its transcript, can be purged: the lines come out of the file on your own disk and nothing is written in their place, with no server copy anywhere. The one caveat is that it is not recoverable either.

None of that makes a recording lawful in Delaware. Consent law is about the recording, not about where it is stored, so the fact that transcription runs on your own device and the audio is never written to disk is not an answer to the statute. It is an answer to a different and often more pressing question in the room.

• RCFP, Reporter's Recording Guide: Delaware
• 11 Del. C. ch. 5, subch. VII
• 11 Del. C. ch. 24, subch. I

• US recording laws, state by state: the federal baseline, the cross-border problem, and all 51 jurisdictions.
• Telling people you're recording: the scripts, and the three ways to stop.
• Private by design: why the audio never leaves your computer.

This page is legal information, not legal advice. It summarises statutes and cases rather than replacing them, and we are not lawyers. If the answer matters, ask someone who can be held to their answer.