Is It Illegal to Secretly Record Someone in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts is the state where recording a conversation without telling the other person is not a small thing. Under M.G.L. c. 272, sec. 99, willfully committing an interception of a wire or oral communication can carry imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years, and a crime punishable by state prison is a felony under M.G.L. c. 274, sec. 1.

The all-party rule is hiding in a definition

Most people looking for the rule go hunting for a sentence that says everyone has to consent. There isn’t one. The requirement is built into how the section defines its central word. An interception is to secretly hear or secretly record the contents of a wire or oral communication through an intercepting device, “by any person other than a person given prior authority by all parties to such communication.” Prior authority from all parties takes the conduct outside the definition, and once it is outside the definition, the offence paragraph has nothing to attach to.

The word secretly is doing work too

The definition says secretly hear and secretly record. That word is in the text, and it is part of why the practical advice everyone gives, say out loud that you are recording, tracks the statute rather than just being polite.

The penalty range

Subsection C, paragraph 1 sets a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars, or imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years, or imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not more than two and one half years, or both a fine and one such imprisonment. The state prison option is what puts this on the felony side of the line drawn in chapter 274.

This section is genuinely long, and that matters

Section 99 opens with a preamble about organized crime, then runs through sixteen numbered definitions, several separate offences, a full warrant procedure for law enforcement, and rules about suppressing unlawfully obtained evidence. It contains exceptions and authorizations as well. A short video can quote the definition and the penalty honestly; it cannot summarize the section, and neither can this page. If the question you have is about a real recording, the length of section 99 is exactly why the answer depends on facts.

What this page is not

This page quotes the definition of interception and the penalty in subsection C, paragraph 1. It does not enumerate the section’s exceptions, describe the warrant procedure, or say how a court would treat any particular recording. Read section 99 yourself at the link above, and telephone the firm about a real situation.