Kansas Call Recording Laws: One-Party Consent

Kansas is a one-party consent state: you can record a phone call you are part of, because the law only prohibits intercepting a message "without the consent of the sender or receiver." Recording a call between two other people without either one's consent is a breach of privacy, a class A misdemeanor, and can also bring a civil suit.

For Kansas businesses, recording your own customer calls is lawful. The main reason to add a notice is customers calling from other states.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Kansas recording law at a glance

Question	Answer in Kansas
Consent rule for phone calls	One party (sender or receiver)
Main statute	K.S.A. § 21-6101 (breach of privacy)
Can a participant record without telling others?	Yes
Criminal penalty	Class A nonperson misdemeanor
Civil remedy	K.S.A. § 22-2518: at least $100/day or $1,000, plus punitive damages and fees
Stored emails	Interception requires capture in transit (State v. Brooks)

What the statute says

K.S.A. § 21-6101(a) defines breach of privacy as knowingly and without lawful authority doing any of several things. The provisions that matter for phone calls are:

• (a)(1) Intercepting, without the consent of the sender or receiver, a message by telephone, telegraph, letter or other means of private communication.
• (a)(2) Divulging, without the consent of the sender or receiver, the existence or contents of such a message, if the person knows it was illegally intercepted.
• (a)(5) Installing or using any device for intercepting a telephone or other wire or wireless communication without the consent of the person in possession or control of the facilities.

Because consent from either the sender or the receiver is enough, a participant who records is not breaching privacy.

In-person conversations

Section 21-6101(a)(4) covers devices used in or outside a private place to capture sounds that would not ordinarily be audible, "without the consent of the person or persons entitled to privacy therein." That wording could be read as all-party, but according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), the Kansas Supreme Court held in State v. Roudybush (1984) that one party's consent is enough; once one party consents, non-consenting parties cannot challenge the recording.

A "private place" is one where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, so recording in public generally needs no consent.

Entering to listen

Section 21-6101(a)(3) separately prohibits entering a private place intending to listen surreptitiously to private conversations there.

Penalties

Violation	Statute	Classification
Intercepting or divulging messages, or eavesdropping devices	§ 21-6101(a)(1)-(5)	Class A nonperson misdemeanor
Hidden camera recording of a nude or undressed person	§ 21-6101(a)(6)	Severity level 8 person felony (level 5 for repeat)
Disseminating such images	§ 21-6101(a)(7)	Severity level 5 person felony

The RCFP lists the class A misdemeanor maximum as up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500.

Civil liability

Kansas's wiretap statutes include a civil remedy at K.S.A. § 22-2518. According to the RCFP, anyone whose wire, oral or electronic communications are intercepted, disclosed or used in violation of the law may recover actual damages, $100 a day or $1,000, whichever is greater, plus punitive damages, attorney's fees and litigation costs.

Stored messages

In State v. Brooks (Kan. Ct. App. 2011), the court held that interception must occur while the message is in transit, such as a wiretap, and found that reviewing emails months after they were sent did not violate § 21-6101. That narrows the statute for stored messages, but federal stored communications law and other claims can still apply to accessing someone's account without permission.

Federal law and Kansas

The federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d), also allows a party to record, or a non-party to record with a party's consent, unless the purpose is criminal or tortious. Kansas reaches the same result through different wording: its breach of privacy statute protects messages from interception "without the consent of the sender or receiver." A business that follows Kansas's rule for its own calls is generally within federal law too, as long as the recording serves a legitimate purpose.

Calls between Kansas and neighboring states

Neighboring state	Rule for phone calls
Missouri	One-party
Nebraska	One-party
Colorado	One-party
Oklahoma	One-party

All of Kansas's neighbors are one-party states, so regional calls are simple. Kansas City businesses straddle the state line with Missouri, which follows the same basic rule. National calls are a different story. California, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Washington protect their residents with stricter laws. Read interstate call recording consent and see the state-by-state table.

Three Kansas scenarios

A Wichita aviation supplier records calls with customers. The sales rep is the sender or receiver, so § 21-6101(a)(1) does not apply. Many aviation customers are outside Kansas, including California, so the supplier plays a notice on recorded calls.

An Overland Park property manager installs a recorder in a vacant unit's wall to capture what a tenant says. The manager is not a party, and the sounds would not ordinarily be audible outside. That is a breach of privacy under § 21-6101(a)(4).

A Topeka employer reads an ex-employee's old emails left on a company laptop. Under Brooks, that is not interception under § 21-6101 because the messages are not in transit. Company policy and other laws still govern access to personal accounts.

What this means for Kansas businesses

Agriculture and grain

Elevators and co-ops record price and contract calls. Recording openly avoids disputes about what was agreed and covers callers outside Kansas.

Healthcare and insurance

Restrict access to recordings that contain health or financial information, and set a retention schedule.

Employees

A signed recording and monitoring policy documents your side's consent and tells staff which lines are recorded.

Party lines and older exceptions

Kansas's breach-of-privacy statute still contains an exception for messages overheard through a regularly installed instrument on a telephone party line, a reminder of how old some of its language is. Modern business systems raise newer questions, such as cloud recording, transcription and AI summaries, that the text does not address directly. The safe course is to treat all of them as recording: done only on calls your staff take part in, with notice to callers.

Kansas recording checklist

• Recording notice at the start of recorded inbound calls
• Spoken notice on outbound recorded calls to customers outside the region
• Signed employee policy on recording and monitoring
• No interception of calls you are not party to
• No devices capturing sounds inside private places
• Callers who object are not recorded
• Access controls and retention schedule

Wording is in call recording disclosure scripts.

Recording calls in Kansas with Callata

With recording turned on, Callata plays "This call may be recorded." to both sides as the call connects, on inbound and outbound calls. Recordings are transcribed and summarized with sentiment and action items on the contact's history. Under Callata's terms, consent-law compliance remains your responsibility. For $99 a month you get five users with recording included, and more users are $20 a month each. Get started.