Is DC a one-party consent jurisdiction?

D.C. Code § 23-542 prohibits interception of wire and oral communications, so telephone and in-person alike, and RCFP notes it applies to mobile phones as well as landlines. § 23-542(b)(3) exempts a person not acting under colour of law who is a party or has one party's prior consent, unless the interception is "for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act".

The privacy element sits in the definition of oral communication at § 23-541(2).

Up to five years, plus a fine set by the § 22-3571.01 schedule. RCFP reports the applicable ceiling as $12,500; because the code section only cross-references, treat that figure as RCFP-sourced. Voyeurism runs to one year and $2,500 as a misdemeanor, and five years and $12,500 for felony distribution.

Private right of action with statutory damages. § 23-554, as reported by RCFP, gives the greater of actual damages, $100 per day per violation, or $1,000, plus punitive damages, fees and costs. The section number was confirmed against the official code; the amounts rest on RCFP.

Being one of the people in the conversation answers the question for District of Columbia. It does not answer it for whoever is on the other end. No rule settles which state's law applies when the participants are in different places, more than one may apply at once, and courts have reached opposite results on comparable facts. If anyone on the call might be in an all-party state, the safe posture is theirs rather than yours. The general problem is on the US overview.

Nothing in District of Columbia law requires you to say anything, which is a different thing from it being a good idea. The reason to announce it anyway is the person on the other end of the call, who may be somewhere stricter, and the reason to ask rather than tell is that it puts an answer on the record instead of an assumption.

I'm recording this for notes, stored on my machine only. Any objection?

Then leave a beat. Longer versions, and what to do when someone says no, 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. In a one-party state that is legally unremarkable, and it is still the reason nobody in the room knows unless you say so.

The controls exist for when somebody would rather you didn't. A pause from the live edge releases the microphone and the system audio stream, so your operating system's own recording indicator goes dark and the person who asked can watch it happen rather than take your word for it. A meeting on a connected calendar can be marked never-record. 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 to reconcile against because there is no server.

None of that makes a recording lawful anywhere, and the audio never leaving your device is not an answer to a consent statute. It is a good answer to "where does this go", which is usually the question the room actually has.

• RCFP, Reporter's Recording Guide: District of Columbia
• D.C. Code § 23-542

• 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.