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CCTV FAQ – How and when can you record audio?

Posted 04 May 2025

Category: eBooks

Section 7 of the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 imposes some restrictions on the use of listening devices, generally that one should not, without the consent of all parties to the conversation, install or use a listening device (which does not include a hearing aid or similar device) to listen to or record a private conversation to which you are not a party or record a private conversation to which you are party. However, the act makes a number of exceptions and qualifications to that general rule and one can record a conversation if:

  • The conversation is not private, e.g. it takes place in a public place or might otherwise be overheard by others, which will cover most “one-on-one” meetings held in public places and most meetings of groups wherever held. The restriction applies only to private conversations, which is defined to mean words spoken by one person to another in circumstances that may reasonably be taken to indicate that any of those persons decides the words to be listened to only by themselves or another person with the consent of those persons, but excluding a conversation made in circumstances in which the parties to it ought reasonably expect that it might be overheard by someone else.
  • All parties to the conversation consent to it being recorded, which can be implied, e.g. participants in a conversation are advised prior to the conversation that it will be recorded.
  • A party to the conversation makes the recording, without the consent of the other parties to the conversation, either to protect that party’s lawful interests or as a private record, i.e. with no intent of communicating the conversation or a report of it to another person. The courts of construed “lawful interests” broadly, similarly to “legitimate interests”. Violi v Berrivale Orchards Ltd (2000) 173 ALR 518, 523 [28] & Corby & Corby [2015] FCCA 1099 (16 April 2015) [19]. Examples upheld by the courts include recordings protective against verbal abuse and against allegations of false claims with respect to matters which might be the subject of evidence in proceedings.
  • The recording is accidental.
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This is an extract from our CCTV in Strata eBook.

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Bannermans Lawyers

Published 04 May 2025
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