Minnesota Is a One-Party Consent State for Conversations and Not a Consent State at All for Images

“Minnesota is a one-party consent state” is the most repeated sentence in this area of law, and it is true.

It is also, as people usually deploy it, an answer to a question nobody asked. One-party consent is a rule about the interception of communications. It has nothing to say about cameras. Those are governed by an entirely different chapter, written to a different standard, with a different enforcement mechanism and no consent rule of the kind people are thinking of.

The conflation runs both ways, and both directions cost people something. Some install a camera believing a statute protects them because they are “part of the household.” Others learn they were recorded and assume nothing can be done, not knowing that Minnesota attaches one of the more substantial civil remedies in the state code to an unlawful interception.

The one-party consent rule, stated precisely

Minnesota’s wiretap chapter is Minn. Stat. ch. 626A. Section 626A.02, subd. 1 makes it an offense to intentionally intercept “any wire, electronic, or oral communication,” to use a device to intercept an oral communication in specified ways, or to disclose or use the contents of a communication “knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of a wire, electronic, or oral communication in violation of this subdivision.”

The one-party consent rule is an exemption, and it is subd. 2(d):

It is not unlawful under this chapter for a person not acting under color of law to intercept a wire, electronic, or oral communication where such person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception unless such communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the constitution or laws of the United States or of any state.

Read the last clause. The exemption evaporates if the interception is made “for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act.” One-party consent is not a blanket license to record; it is a license to record for lawful purposes. A recording made to blackmail, to defame, to tortiously interfere, or to commit any other criminal or tortious act is not protected by subd. 2(d) even though the recorder was on the call.

A parallel exemption in subd. 2(c) applies to a person “acting under color of law” on the same one-party terms, without the tortious-purpose proviso.

There is a second, structural reason a self-recording is usually lawful, and it sits in the definitions. Under § 626A.01, subd. 6, an “electronic, mechanical, or other device” excludes, among other things:

(3) that which is specifically designed to only record conversations to which the operator of the device is a party;

A device that can only record the operator’s own conversations is not the kind of device the statute regulates in the first place.

“Oral communication” is narrower than “anything anyone says”

The chapter does not protect speech generally. Section 626A.01, subd. 4 defines the term:

“Oral communication” means any oral communication uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation, but the term does not include any electronic communication.

That is a two-part test: a subjective expectation that the words are not being intercepted, plus circumstances that justify the expectation. Words shouted across a parking lot are not oral communications within the chapter’s meaning merely because the speaker would have preferred not to be recorded.

“Intercept,” in turn, “means the aural or other acquisition of the contents of any wire, electronic, or oral communication through the use of any electronic, mechanical, or other device.” § 626A.01, subd. 5.

The civil remedy nobody expects

Here is what most people do not know, and it is the reason a wiretap claim is worth evaluating seriously rather than filing away as a criminal-referral problem.

Section 626A.13, subd. 1 creates the action: a person “whose wire, oral, or electronic communication is intercepted, disclosed, or intentionally used in violation of this chapter may in a civil action recover from the person or entity that engaged in that violation relief as may be appropriate.”

Subd. 2 defines “appropriate relief” as including “temporary and other equitable or declaratory relief as may be appropriate”; “damages under subdivision 3 and punitive damages in appropriate cases”; and “a reasonable attorney’s fee and other litigation costs reasonably incurred.”

Subd. 3(b) supplies the damages formula for ordinary cases — everything outside the narrow satellite and subpart-D radio situations addressed in subd. 3(a):

In any other action under this section, the court may assess as damages whichever is the greater of:

(1) the sum of three times the actual damages suffered by the plaintiff and any profits made by the violator as a result of the violation; or

(2) statutory damages of whichever is the greater of $100 a day for each day of violation or $10,000.

Treble actual damages plus disgorged profits, or a statutory floor that is the greater of $100 per day or $10,000 — with attorney fees and the availability of punitive damages on top. That is a meaningful remedy, and it does not require the plaintiff to prove a dollar of out-of-pocket loss.

Two limits belong next to it.

Subd. 4 — the good-faith defense. Good faith reliance on “a court warrant or order, a grand jury subpoena, a legislative authorization, or a statutory authorization,” on a law-enforcement request under 18 U.S.C. § 2518(7), or on “a good faith determination that section 626A.02, subdivision 3, permitted the conduct complained of,” is “a complete defense against any civil or criminal action brought under this chapter or any other law.”

Subd. 5 — the clock. “A civil action under this section may not be begun later than two years after the date upon which the claimant first has a reasonable opportunity to discover the violation.” The trigger is discovery-based, which matters in a category of case where the whole point was that the plaintiff did not know.

The criminal side of the same conduct is in § 626A.02, subd. 4: a violation of subd. 1 is punishable by a fine of “not more than $20,000 or imprison[ment] not more than five years, or both,” with reduced penalties in the narrow first-offense, unencrypted-radio circumstances described in subd. 4(b).

Images are a different statute, and it does not work like this at all

Now the other half, and the point of the article. Minn. Stat. § 609.746, subd. 1, headnoted “Surreptitious intrusion; observation device,” is the hidden-camera statute. It is built out of paragraphs, each defining a separate offense, and none of them contains anything resembling one-party consent.

Paragraphs (a) and (b) reach the classic peeping and dwelling-camera cases. Each requires that the person (1) “enters upon another’s property”; (2) either “surreptitiously gazes, stares, or peeps in the window or any other aperture of a house or place of dwelling of another” or “surreptitiously installs or uses any device for observing, photographing, recording, amplifying, or broadcasting sounds or events through the window or any other aperture” of such a dwelling; and (3) “does so with intent to intrude upon or interfere with the privacy of a member of the household.” Gross misdemeanors.

Paragraphs (c) and (d) extend the same two structures — direct observation and device use — to “the window or other aperture of a sleeping room in a hotel, as defined in section 327.70, subdivision 3, a tanning booth, or other place where a reasonable person would have an expectation of privacy and has exposed or is likely to expose their intimate parts, as defined in section 609.341, subdivision 5, or the clothing covering the immediate area of the intimate parts,” with intent to intrude upon or interfere with the occupant’s privacy.

Paragraph (e) is the broadest, and it is the one to know. A person is guilty of a gross misdemeanor who:

(1) uses any device for photographing, recording, or broadcasting an image of an individual in a house or place of dwelling; a sleeping room of a hotel as defined in section 327.70, subdivision 3; a tanning booth; a bathroom; a locker room; a changing room; an indoor shower facility; or any place where a reasonable person would have an expectation of privacy; and

(2) does so with the intent to photograph, record, or broadcast an image of the individual’s intimate parts, as defined in section 609.341, subdivision 5, without the consent of the individual.

Notice three things about (e). It does not require entering another’s property. It does not require that the use be “surreptitious.” And it reaches “any place where a reasonable person would have an expectation of privacy,” which is not a fixed list.

Paragraph (f) is the misdemeanor “upskirting” provision — surreptitious use of a device to observe, photograph, record, or broadcast an image of intimate parts or the covering clothing, where the actor “observes, photographs, or records the image under or around the individual’s clothing,” with intent to intrude upon or interfere with privacy.

Paragraphs (g) through (j) escalate. A violation of (a) through (e) after a previous conviction under the subdivision or under § 609.749, or against a minor under 18 with knowledge or reason to know the minor is present, is a felony punishable by “not more than two years or … a fine of not more than $5,000, or both.” § 609.746, subd. 1(g). Paragraph (h) reaches four years where the person violates (b), (d), or (e) against a minor victim under 18, is more than 36 months older, knows or has reason to know the minor is present, and the violation “is committed with sexual intent.”

Paragraph (k) contains the exemptions, and one of them is the commercial rule everyone should know:

Paragraph (b), (d), or (e) does not apply to law enforcement officers or corrections investigators, or to those acting under their direction, while engaged in the performance of their lawful duties. Paragraphs (c), (d), and (e) do not apply to conduct in: (1) a medical facility; or (2) a commercial establishment if the owner of the establishment has posted conspicuous signs warning that the premises are under surveillance by the owner or the owner’s employees.

A conspicuous posted sign does real statutory work in a commercial setting. It does not, on the face of paragraph (k), reach paragraphs (a), (b), or (f).

Side by side

The device that is both: a camera with a microphone

The practical convergence is the reason both statutes have to be read together.

A camera hidden in a bedroom, a bathroom, or a rented unit is a § 609.746 problem. If that same camera records audio, it is also a ch. 626A problem — because the person who installed it and is not present is not a party to the conversations it captures, and a bedroom or bathroom is close to the paradigm case for “circumstances justifying” an expectation that speech is not being intercepted under § 626A.01, subd. 4.

That distinction has consequences that are entirely practical. Section 609.746 is criminal only; it gives the person filmed nothing to file. Chapter 626A gives them § 626A.13 — treble damages or a $10,000 statutory floor, punitive damages in appropriate cases, and attorney fees.

So in a hidden-camera case, whether the device recorded sound is frequently the difference between a criminal referral and a civil case. It is the first question to ask about the hardware, and the answer is usually recoverable from the model number.

Workplaces and rentals

Employers. Chapter 626A’s definitional exclusions matter more than its exemptions here. Section 626A.01, subd. 6(1) excludes from “device” telephone or telegraph equipment “furnished to the subscriber or user by a provider or wire or electronic communications service in the ordinary course of its business and being used by the subscriber or user in the ordinary course of its business,” among other configurations — the provision usually invoked for monitoring on company telephone systems. Section 626A.02, subd. 2(a) separately exempts communications-service personnel acting in the normal course of employment on necessary-incident or rights-protection grounds, while expressly barring a public wire service from “service observing or random monitoring except for mechanical or service quality control checks.” On the camera side, § 609.746, subd. 1(k)’s commercial-establishment exemption from paragraphs (c), (d), and (e) is conditioned on conspicuous posted signs.

Landlords and tenants. A rented dwelling is “a house or place of dwelling” for purposes of § 609.746, subd. 1(a) and (b), and both of those paragraphs are written around a person who “enters upon another’s property.” Paragraph (e) requires no entry at all and reaches an image captured “in a house or place of dwelling.” A camera left behind in a unit is not made lawful by ownership of the building.

In each of these settings the same two-track analysis applies: audio is a ch. 626A question, images are a § 609.746 question, and a device doing both is both.

When the statute gives no remedy, the common law might

Because § 609.746 creates no private action, the civil route for an image case runs through Minnesota’s privacy torts — which the state did not recognize at all until 1998.

In Lake v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 582 N.W.2d 231 (Minn. 1998), the supreme court took up “[w]hether Minnesota should recognize any or all of the invasion of privacy causes of action,” calling it “a question of first impression in Minnesota.” 582 N.W.2d at 233. The plaintiffs had alleged all four traditional privacy torts. The court split them:

Therefore, without consideration of the merits of Lake and Weber’s claims, we recognize the torts of intrusion upon seclusion, appropriation, and publication of private facts.

582 N.W.2d at 235. And it declined the fourth: “We decline to recognize the tort of false light publicity at this time,” reasoning that false light claims resemble defamation and that “the risk of chilling speech is too great to justify protection for this small category of false publication not protected under defamation.” Id. at 235–36. The court’s summary: Minnesota recognizes “causes of action in tort for intrusion upon seclusion, appropriation, and publication of private facts, but we decline to recognize the tort of false light publicity.” Id. at 236.

Intrusion upon seclusion is the one that fits a hidden camera. Quoting the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652B, the Lake court described it as occurring when one “intentionally intrudes, physically or otherwise, upon the solitude or seclusion of another or his private affairs or concerns,” where “the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.” 582 N.W.2d at 233.

What to do

1. Ask first whether the device captured sound. It decides which statute governs and whether a statutory civil remedy exists at all.
2. Preserve the device, the storage medium, and the account. Cloud-camera footage and app logs cycle. A subpoena three months later frequently reaches nothing.
3. Do not delete anything, including your own recordings. Section 626A.02, subd. 1(3)–(4) reaches disclosure and use of unlawfully intercepted contents, not only the interception. What you do with a recording is separately regulated.
4. If you are the one recording, ask what the recording is for. Section 626A.02, subd. 2(d) withdraws its protection where the interception is “for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act.” Being a party to the call is necessary, not sufficient.
5. Do not rely on “I own the building” or “it’s my house.” Neither ownership nor residence appears as a defense in § 609.746, and paragraph (e) does not require entry onto anyone’s property.
6. Calendar the two-year discovery clock. Section 626A.13, subd. 5 runs from the first reasonable opportunity to discover the violation — which is a date worth pinning down in writing while the memory is fresh.
7. Where records held by someone else are involved, know which statute governs their release. Minnesota’s health-record consent rules are stricter than the federal default, as we explain in a Minnesota clinic can run a perfectly HIPAA-compliant release process and still be breaking Minnesota law.

The observation

Two statutes, written decades apart, ended up governing the same living room.

Chapter 626A is a consent statute. Its entire architecture assumes a conversation with participants, one of whom may agree. That assumption makes sense for a phone call and makes no sense at all for a lens.

Section 609.746 is not a consent statute. It is an intent statute. The question it asks is not whether someone agreed but what the person operating the device meant to accomplish, and where the person on the other side of the lens reasonably expected to be unobserved. Consent enters the analysis in exactly one place — paragraph (e)(2)’s element that the image of intimate parts be captured “without the consent of the individual” — and it functions as an element of the crime, not as a safe harbor for the recorder.

The habit of saying “Minnesota is a one-party consent state” and stopping there gets both halves wrong. It overstates the protection for conversations, because subd. 2(d) is conditioned on lawful purpose. And it imports a permission into the image context that the image statute never granted.

The useful question is not “is Minnesota a one-party consent state.” It is “what did the device capture, and where was the person it captured standing.”

Madgett Law, LLC handles Minnesota privacy claims arising from unlawful recording and surveillance, including civil actions under Minn. Stat. § 626A.13 and the common-law privacy torts recognized in Lake v. Wal-Mart Stores. If you have found a device, the first thing to preserve is the device. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.

Sources: Minn. Stat. § 626A.01 (2025) (subd. 4, “oral communication”; subd. 5, “intercept”; subd. 6, “electronic, mechanical, or other device,” including clauses (1) and (3); subd. 9, “aggrieved person”); Minn. Stat. § 626A.02 (2025) (subd. 1, offenses; subd. 2(a), (c), (d), exemptions; subd. 3, disclosing communications; subd. 4(a)–(b), penalties; subd. 5, civil action by county or city attorney); Minn. Stat. § 626A.13 (2025) (subd. 1, civil remedy; subd. 2, relief; subd. 3(a)–(b), computation of damages; subd. 4, good-faith defense; subd. 5, two-year limitation from reasonable opportunity to discover); Minn. Stat. § 609.746, subd. 1 (2025) (paragraphs (a)–(k), surreptitious intrusion and observation devices, including the paragraph (e) image offense, the paragraph (f) misdemeanor, the paragraph (g)–(j) enhancements, and the paragraph (k) law-enforcement, medical-facility, and posted-commercial-premises exemptions) (Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes). Lake v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 582 N.W.2d 231 (Minn. 1998) (question of first impression and Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652B description of intrusion upon seclusion, at 233; recognition of intrusion upon seclusion, appropriation, and publication of private facts, at 235; refusal to recognize false light publicity, at 235–36; summary of the holding, at 236). Restatement (Second) of Torts § 652B (1977) is quoted as reproduced in Lake. Section 609.746 creates no private cause of action, and nothing above suggests otherwise. The criminal limitations period applicable to prosecutions under § 609.746 is not stated here: Minn. Stat. § 628.26 was amended twice in the 2026 session (2026 c 127 art 7 s 6 and 2026 c 97 art 3 s 4) and its current paragraph designations must be confirmed against the enacted text. This article is general legal information about Minnesota law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Every situation depends on its own facts. No outcome is promised or implied.