How to Secretly Record on iPhone (2023)

Smartphones are great streaming devices – you can use them to watch TV shows, movies, videos, audiobooks, music, games, and much more. They are equally good for recording audio and video content from our daily lives. You can use a smartphone to make voice memos to remind yourself of important tasks or take notes, you can record videos of special events (or just funny things you see around the neighborhood), and you can even record what happens on your phone screens. Part of this functionality is built right into your iPhone, while other types of tasks require downloading one or more apps.

Is it legit?

When you want to record secretly, things get a bit more complicated. There are a number of reasons why you might want to record something without your subjects knowing; Maybe you want to record a video with your child care provider's babysitter to make sure she isn't doing anything wrong when you're not around, or maybe you want to record a video of everyone who shows up at your front door. The legality and morality of such a recording may be clear, but it may also not be. Much depends on the location, the purpose of the recording, and the amount of privacy reasonable people can expect under certain circumstances. It is usually legal to record the exterior of your home without notice, for example; it is your private property, the people visiting your home are in public and have no reasonable expectation of privacy in that circumstance. Other circumstances are considerably less clear.

TechJunkie is not a legal advice site and cannot advise you on the specific legality of any given act. For this, it is necessary to consult a lawyer. However, we can explain some basic concepts.

Conversation recording

Some of the law on this subject is fairly well established; for example, you can legally record telephone conversations or personal conversations. In some states (called unilateral states), such recording is legal if someone in the conversation knows that it is being recorded. This counts even if that person is making the recording. In other states, recording is legal only if all parties to the conversation are informed that it is being recorded. For this reason, the SAC always informs that "calls can be recorded or monitored" - so that, regardless of the legal regime of your state, they are answered.

There are 11 states in which all parties must be informed of a recording: California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Also, Hawaii is generally a one-party state, but it is a two-party state if the recording device is in a private location. Since this is an almost impossibly vague rule, you have to consider Hawaii a bipartisan state. In most states, the recording warning is sufficient; only a few places require everyone involved to give their explicit consent to be recorded.

There is also a federal vs. state consideration. Jurisdiction issues are often very complicated, so again, consult an attorney before making any major decisions. As a general principle, if the people involved in a conversation are in different states, federal law applies. If they are in a state, the law of that state controls. Federal law is a one-party consent law, while, as seen above, states vary. It's also worth mentioning that, in most states, recording a conversation in a public place is always legal, even without the explicit knowledge of the parties; in public places, people may not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Record of the police or other public officials

How about recording a police stop or the conduct of public officials on official business? Do you have permission to record it and do you need to tell them about the recording? In general, you can record yes and no, you don't need to report. Four federal circuit courts (First, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh) have explicitly stated that there is a First Amendment right to search public officials in the course of their work. These courts cover the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin. They also cover the US territories of the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and Guam. In other states and territories, the federal judiciary has yet to adjudicate the right to register public employees. That isprobablethat decisions already made by four of the country's circuit courts would be persuasive in a similar case in an untried state, but this is not guaranteed.

It is crucial to note that this First Amendment right to search does NOT transfer to the right to interfere with police duties or violate applicable laws. You may not interfere with an arrest, search, ignore lawful police orders intended to control a riot or other civil disturbance, or violate the privacy rights of any other person.

recording of performances

So you're at the Phish concert and you really like the music. Can you take your phone and record the show? Yes and no, but mostly no.

Not legally. There is a federal law that prohibits the recording of a public performance (a concert, a play, a musical, whatever) without the explicit permission of the performers and, in many cases, the owners of the venue.

In practical terms, many artists have tolerated (and in some rare cases, like the Grateful Dead, encouraged) the recording of bootlegs (audio, video, or both) of their concerts. This tolerance isn't the same as being nice, but generally speaking, if you're filming a show where the performers don't care, that's fine. However, it is strictly prohibited to use such recordings for gain, personal or otherwise. You can get away with recording Phish, perhaps, but if you start trying to sell your Phish bootlegs on Ebay, your lawyers will descend on you like the wrath of an angry deity and you will lose, and lose badly, in court. So keep this in mind.

Record your iPhone screen

This type of recording is completely legal; it's your phone and you can record whatever you want. There is built-in functionality in iOS to record your own screen. You must configure it by activating it first. To see how:

1. Navigate to the iPhone Settings app.
2. Navigate to Control Center
   
3. Select the '+' icon next to Screen Recording.
   

This adds screen recording to your Control Center.

To actually record:

1. Open Control Center by swiping up from the home screen.
2. Select your new Screen Recording icon. It's the gray and white circle.
   
3. Select to start a 3 second countdown. Short touch for video only, long touch for audio and video.
   
4. Select the white or red circle again to stop recording.
   

The recorded video will be accessible in the Photos app, and you can edit it as usual, with your phone's built-in tools, or by exporting it to your Mac. There's no real way to do this "secretly," but once you click on record and navigate to do what you want to record, there is no indication that a recording is in progress.

Record with iPhone screen off

You can record video and/or audio with the Camera app on your phone, but of course this will usually be pretty obvious to anyone looking at the phone - you'll see the Camera app running on a brightly lit active screen. If you want to record with the camera and still look subtle, there is a way to do it in some older versions of iOS. Please note that this will not work on version 10 or later.

1. Lock your iPhone screen with the phone turned on.
2. Press the lock key to turn on the lock app, but don't unlock it.
3. Slide the camera icon up a bit while holding it down.
4. Select the red record button at the bottom with another finger while holding down the camera icon.
5. Press the home button six times in quick succession.
6. Press and hold the camera icon until the iPhone screen goes dark.

At this point, your iPhone is recording and will continue to do so until you turn it off or it runs out of disk space or battery.

Mute shutter sound

This one is simple. If you want to take photos or record videos without the shutter sounding, just turn on the Mute button on your iPhone. (This is the same switch that turns off the ringer on your phone.) That's it, no more shutter noise.

You can read articles online that say this is illegal. While it may be illegal in some jurisdictions to take a photo without the shutter sound, my investigation was unable to uncover this. It's just not true. You can turn off the shutter noise to your heart's content. If you see an article that says this is illegal and provides a citation from a source other than the opinion of the author, please come back here and leave us a comment - we're tracking this issue.

Secret recording using apps

There are various apps that allow you to secretly record phone calls, videos and audio. I won't do an exhaustive review of all of them, but here are a few that you can use to make private recordings on your iPhone.

TapeACall Pro

TapeACall Proit does what it says on the box: it allows you to record calls made on an iPhone. This is a highly rated app, and although it costs $10.99, it allows you to record your calls without any hassle and is very reliable.

SP chamber

SP chamberIt costs $9.99 but it is a very complete spy camera app for your iPhone. It allows you to secretly capture photos and videos without anyone noticing. The app hides all buttons on the camera interface and viewfinder screen by displaying a fake background image. You can place your phone in an area as if you were leaving it there and it will record it, and you will look totally innocent. The app has a photo timer feature that allows you to take photos every few seconds, as well as a motion detector sensor that will start recording if something moves in the camera's field of view. You can also save your videos and photos in a password protected secret folder.

Presence

Presenceis an application that allows you to turn any iOS device into a WiFi-enabled security camera. This allows you to set up your old iPhone or iPad anywhere in your home or office and silently stream video to your mobile device. You can secretly record anywhere you can leave your phone and have Wi-Fi. Ideal for video surveillance, it also offers two-way calls. The basic app is free; the premium service adds support for things like home security devices, smart switches, controllable lights, etc.

Do you have any other suggestions on how to secretly record using an iPhone? Share them with us in the comments below!

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