Tennessee recording consent law for interviews: one-party, and no state damages claim since 2024

Tennessee is a one-party consent state. Under Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-601(b)(5), a private person may intercept a call or conversation "where the person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent," unless the purpose is a criminal or tortious act under Tennessee law. Under Tennessee law, then, a recruiter or hiring manager may capture their own phone screen, video interview or on-site interview. Two details set Tennessee apart from its neighbors: in 2024 the legislature deleted the state's civil damages section for wiretapping, and a separate statute on cell phone calls only counts someone as a party if every other participant knows they are there.

For a specific pairing of your location and the candidate's, run it through the consent checker.

The wiretap statute and its participant exception

Tennessee's Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act starts at § 39-13-601. Subsection (a)(1) makes it an offense to intentionally intercept "any wire, oral, or electronic communication," and also to disclose or use the contents of one while knowing or having reason to know they came from an unlawful interception.

The exception that covers an interviewer is subsection (b)(5). It is lawful for a person not acting under color of law to intercept a communication:

"where the person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to the interception, unless the communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the constitution or laws of this state."

Subsection (b)(6) adds a flat rule: "It is unlawful to intercept any wire, oral, or electronic communication for the purpose of committing a criminal act." Neither provision defines what counts as tortious in a hiring context. A recording kept to document a lawful, job-related interview is the ordinary case and is not what the purpose limit is aimed at.

The three categories follow the federal model: wire communications are phone calls, oral communications are face-to-face conversations where someone expects privacy, and electronic communications cover data, images and sound sent over networks, which is where a Zoom, Teams or Meet interview fits. Transcription software acquires the contents of the conversation, so treat it exactly like a recording.

The 2024 repeal of the state damages section

Until 2024, § 39-13-603 let a person whose communication was unlawfully intercepted sue for damages under Tennessee law. Public Chapter 1045 (Senate Bill 2221, passed April 23, 2024) amended "Section 39-13-603, ... by deleting the section in its entirety," effective when the act became law.

That does not leave a Tennessee employer without civil exposure. Two routes remain:

• Federal law. 18 U.S.C. § 2520 gives a civil action to a person whose communication is intercepted, disclosed or intentionally used in violation of the federal wiretap act. The court may award the greater of actual damages plus profits or "statutory damages of whichever is the greater of $100 a day for each day of violation or $10,000," plus punitive damages and attorney's fees, within two years of the claimant's first reasonable opportunity to discover the violation.
• The candidate's own state. A candidate in an all-party state may have a claim under that state's statute, some of which set statutory damages per violation.

The same act also rewrote § 39-13-601(d). It now says, "to clarify existing law," that the section does not "restrict a business from selecting the business's vendors and disclosing communications to those vendors, by interception or otherwise, in the normal course of business." That language may matter to companies that send interview audio to a transcription vendor, but we found no official guidance or decision applying it to hiring, and it does nothing for a candidate located in a stricter state.

Criminal penalties

The cell phone rule: who counts as a party

Section 39-13-604 covers communications between two cell phones, or a cell phone and a landline or cordless phone, which describes most phone screens today. It makes it an offense to record one "without the consent of at least one (1) party." Its definition of party is narrower than the general statute's:

"'Party' means only those individuals who participate in a conversation and whose presence as participants is known to all other participants."

This is the detail most worth knowing for Tennessee hiring teams. A hiring manager who joins a recruiter's mobile screen on mute, without the candidate being told, is not a party under this definition, and neither is anyone who starts a recording from that silent seat. The fix is easy: name everyone on the line at the start.

Phone, video and in-person interviews

Calls between Tennessee and other states

Tennessee touches eight states, and every one of them (Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri) appears on our one-party list. A Memphis recruiter calling a candidate in West Memphis or Southaven, or a Chattanooga team interviewing someone across the line in north Georgia, faces the same basic rule on both sides. Georgia has one wrinkle for video in private places, covered in Georgia recording consent law for interviews.

The conflicts come from farther away. A Tennessee employer that recruits nationally will reach candidates in Florida, California, Illinois or Pennsylvania, all of which are all-party states. Federal law (18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d)) mirrors Tennessee's rule but does not stop another state from applying its own; how courts sort that out is in recording calls across state lines. And with the state damages section gone, a lawsuit over a cross-border call is more likely to be brought under the candidate's state law or federal law than under Tennessee's.

Practical points for Tennessee hiring teams

1. Announce everyone. The cell phone definition of party turns on whether the others know you are there, so a roll call at the start does legal work, not just courtesy.
2. Do not read the 2024 repeal as permission. It removed one state remedy; the felony, the federal civil claim and other states' laws are all still there.
3. Check vendor terms anyway. The new subsection (d) speaks to disclosing communications to vendors, not to whether the candidate agreed. Know where the transcript goes and who can read it; see how to record a phone screen for setup.
4. Treat text-only tools as recording. A tool that keeps a transcript and discards audio still acquired the contents.
5. Keep analysis separate. Scoring or AI evaluation raises different questions; see AI hiring laws by state.

A consent line for Tennessee interviews

"Quick note before we start: on this call with me is [name, role].
I'd also like to [record / transcribe] our conversation so we can
review your answers accurately for the [role] opening. Only the
hiring team sees it, and it's deleted after [period]. Are you
comfortable with that? Saying no won't count against you."

[Yes: start capture. No or hesitation: leave it off and take notes.]

Naming the other listener first answers the § 39-13-604 question, and the request itself covers a candidate who turns out to be in a stricter state. Longer and written versions are in the interview recording consent script.

Tennessee's rule is the easy part of the call. The candidate's location, the silent listener and the tool's data flow are where Tennessee teams get caught, and a short spoken introduction handles the first two.