Is Pennsylvania a two-party consent state?

18 Pa. C.S. § 5704(4) is the all-party consent exception, requiring that all parties "have given prior consent". Wire, electronic and oral are covered, so in-person is inside.

An expectation of privacy is required for oral communications. RCFP states the in-person all-party rule applies only where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, and public recordings need no consent. RCFP also notes an exception for emails, texts and chats, on the reasoning that participants inherently know those are recorded.

No Pennsylvania authority was found on what consent looks like. That is the gap that matters: the statutory standard is consent, so the distance between "everyone was told" and "everyone consented" is exactly where there is nothing to cite.

A felony of the third degree: § 5703 makes intentional interception, disclosure and use each a third-degree felony. RCFP gives exposure as up to seven years and $15,000, matching Pennsylvania's general third-degree grading, though the sentencing sections were not read directly.

Private right of action under § 5725: 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 reasonable fees and costs. Good-faith reliance on a court order is a 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 Pennsylvania, the practical answer is to satisfy Pennsylvania. 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 Pennsylvania. 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: Pennsylvania
• 18 Pa. C.S. § 5703
• 18 Pa. C.S. § 5725

• 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.