Is Nevada a one-party consent state?

Two statutes, two scopes. NRS 200.620 covers wire communications. NRS 200.650 covers in-person conversation and adds two elements the wire statute lacks: the recording must be surreptitious and the conversation must be private. It reads: "A person shall not intrude upon the privacy of other persons by surreptitiously listening to, monitoring or recording … any private conversation … unless authorized to do so by one of the persons engaging in the conversation."

The call rule comes from a case, not the text. In Lane v. Allstate Ins. Co. (Nev. 1998), the court reasoned that because the legislature wrote an explicit one-party authorisation into NRS 200.650 for in-person conversations and omitted it from NRS 200.620, the omission showed an intent to impose a stricter rule on calls, so every party must consent. RCFP and a secondary source report Sharpe v. State, 350 P.3d 388 (Nev. 2015), extending the all-party phone rule to mobile calls and text messages.

A citation caution. The reporter cite for Lane could not be reconciled: two secondary sources give 114 Nev. 1176, 969 P.2d 938 (1998), while the FindLaw opinion page reported 114 Nev. 1455, 968 P.2d 494 (1998). The year is 1998 in every source, not 1996 as it is commonly miscited. Cite it by name and year until the reporter cite is settled.

For in-person, a participant's own authorisation satisfies NRS 200.650, and an openly announced recording is not surreptitious, so notice is belt-and-braces rather than required. For calls, no state-specific authority was found on how the all-party consent must be obtained: the Nevada practitioner sources state the requirement and are explicitly silent on the mechanics.

A category D felony under NRS 200.690 as provided in NRS 193.130: one to four years and up to a $5,000 fine.

Private right of action under NRS 200.690: actual damages or liquidated damages of $100 per day but not less than $1,000, whichever is greater, plus punitive damages and costs including reasonable fees.

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 Nevada, the practical answer is to satisfy Nevada. 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 Nevada. 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: Nevada
• NRS 200.620
• NRS 200.650
• NRS 200.690
• Lane v. Allstate Ins. Co. (Nev. 1998)
• 702 Defense, on Nevada recording law

• 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.