Is Hawaii a one-party consent state?

Haw. Rev. Stat. § 803-42(b)(3)(A) permits interception of wire, oral and electronic communications where the person "is a party to the communication or when one of the parties … has given prior consent". On that provision alone Hawaii is a one-party state.

§ 711-1111(1)(d) is the trap. It makes it an offence to install or use, "in any private place, without consent of the person or persons entitled to privacy therein, any means or device for observing, recording, amplifying, or broadcasting sounds or events in that place". That is an all-party rule, and it is framed around the place rather than around participation.

A private place is one where "one may reasonably expect to be safe from casual or hostile intrusion or surveillance but does not include a place to which the public or a substantial group thereof has access", per § 711-1100. So the privacy element gates the all-party rule, and a meeting room is squarely inside it.

A § 803-42 violation is a class C felony, which RCFP renders as up to five years and $10,000. Violation of privacy in the second degree under § 711-1111 is a misdemeanor. Hidden-camera exposure runs to five years and $10,000 where undressing or sexual activity is involved, otherwise one year and $2,000.

Civilly, § 803-48 gives a private right of action. RCFP states actual damages plus profits, or $10,000, whichever is greater, plus punitive damages, fees and costs. The $10,000 figure is single-sourced to RCFP.

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 Hawaii, the practical answer is to satisfy Hawaii. 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 Hawaii. 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: Hawaii
• Haw. Rev. Stat. § 803-42
• Haw. Rev. Stat. § 711-1111

• 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.