New York is a one-party consent state: you may record a conversation you are taking part in.
Recordings you made as a participant are generally usable in a New York custody matter, subject to the court's discretion on relevance and authenticity.
You may record a call or conversation you are part of.
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Yes — it is legal to record a phone call or in-person conversation in New York as long as you are a participant in it. New York is a one-party consent state: your own consent to record a conversation you are taking part in satisfies the law. You do not need the other person’s permission, and you do not have to tell them. What remains illegal is listening in on, or recording, a private conversation you are not part of.
What one-party consent means in New York
New York’s wiretapping and eavesdropping law is codified at N.Y. Penal Law § 250.05. The statute defines the offense this way: a person “is guilty of eavesdropping when he unlawfully engages in wiretapping, mechanical overhearing of a conversation, or intercepting or accessing of an electronic communication.” The word doing the work here is “unlawfully.” New York’s broader wiretapping definitions treat interception as lawful when it is done with the consent of a sender or receiver who is a party to the communication — which is exactly the situation when you record your own call with your co-parent. Because you are one of the two parties, your own consent is enough. There is no requirement that the other person agree, and no requirement to announce that you are recording.
Penalties for illegal eavesdropping in New York
The penalty field attached to § 250.05 is blunt: eavesdropping is a class E felony in New York. That classification applies to unlawful interception — bugging a room you have no part in, tapping a line between two other people, or intercepting an electronic communication you were never meant to see. It does not apply to a participant recording their own conversation, because that conduct is not “unlawful” under the statute’s own terms. In other words: the felony exposure exists precisely for the scenario Copareo is not built for (secretly bugging someone else’s conversation) and does not attach to the scenario Copareo is built for (a parent keeping their own record of their own calls).
The exception has a hard edge: what is still illegal
One-party consent is not a blank check. If you were not part of the conversation — for example, hiding a recorder in a room to capture your co-parent talking to someone else, or intercepting a call between your child and their other parent that you are not on — New York’s felony eavesdropping exposure applies in full. The rule that protects a participant recording their own call offers no protection for a third party recording a conversation between two other people. If in doubt about whether you are truly a “party” to a given exchange, treat it as off-limits.
Using a recording in a New York custody case
A recording you made as a genuine participant is generally usable as evidence in a New York custody or family court matter, but usable is not the same as automatically admitted. Courts retain discretion over relevance, authenticity, and whether a given clip is being offered fairly or out of context. A recording that is complete, dated, and stored in an unedited chain is far easier for a judge to credit than a short clip pulled out of a longer call. Your attorney still decides what to actually put in front of the court, and the judge still decides what weight it carries — but the underlying act of making the recording is lawful in New York when you are a party to it.
How Copareo handles this in New York
Because New York is a one-party consent state, Copareo Secure Line does not force an automatic spoken disclosure at the start of a recorded call the way it does in all-party states. You are already legally covered by being a participant. What Copareo still does, regardless of state, is capture the full call and the surrounding SMS thread as a continuous, timestamped archive with transcription — so a New York parent gets a complete, court-ready record without needing to remember to hit record at the right moment or worry about a gap in the timeline.
Recording across state lines: the interstate caveat
New York’s one-party rule only tells you about New York’s own law. If your co-parent is answering from a different state, the analysis is not automatically settled by where you are sitting. Courts have not resolved interstate call recording uniformly, and the safer, prudent approach used across this guide is to apply whichever state’s law is stricter to the call as a whole. Concretely: a New York parent calling a co-parent who is physically in New Jersey (also one-party) has little to worry about. But if that same co-parent is in an all-party state — Connecticut, Florida, California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and others — treat the call as if all-party consent were required, because that is the standard a court sitting in the other party’s state is likely to apply. When you do not know where your co-parent physically is when they answer, defaulting to an announced, disclosed recording costs you nothing and removes the ambiguity entirely.
Frequently asked questions
Can I record a phone call with my co-parent in New York without telling them?
Yes, as long as you are a participant in that call. New York’s one-party consent rule means your own consent is legally sufficient; you are not required to disclose that you are recording.
What happens if I record a conversation in New York that I am not part of?
That is eavesdropping under N.Y. Penal Law § 250.05, a class E felony. The one-party exception only covers conversations you are actually taking part in.
Is a recording admissible in a New York custody case?
A lawfully made participant recording is generally usable, but admissibility and weight are always up to the judge, who will look at relevance, authenticity, and whether the recording is complete or selectively edited.
Does it matter if my co-parent is in a different state when I record the call?
It can. New York’s rule only governs New York’s side of the analysis. If your co-parent is in an all-party consent state, the prudent approach is to treat the call as if it needed everyone’s consent.
Bottom line
New York lets you record your own conversations without asking permission — but that protection only extends to conversations you are actually part of, and it can get complicated the moment a co-parent is calling from a stricter state. Keep a complete, unedited, timestamped record rather than short selective clips, and let the underlying law of participant consent work in your favor.
How Copareo Secure Line helps: Copareo is a $9.90 one-time purchase — no subscription, nothing to cancel — that captures your calls and texts with your co-parent as a continuous, timestamped, exportable archive. See the full state-by-state call recording law guide for every other state, and read how to document co-parenting for court for the broader evidence checklist beyond just recordings.
Not legal advice. This page summarizes New York law for general information and is not a substitute for advice from a licensed New York attorney. Recording and evidence rules change and courts decide admissibility case by case. Verify against the official statute (N.Y. Penal Law § 250.05) and consult an attorney about your situation.