privacy oregon
Is it legal to secretly record audio of a housemate in their shared home?
<p>My housemate claims to have made a secret video and audio recording of me and shown it to someone else. I'm not really concerned about the contents of the supposed video going public, but this housemate is becoming problematic (obviously), and this might provide some leverage to have him evicted or get a restraining order or something.</p>
<p>I looked at the statute in Oregon and it says you require consent of all parties for an in-person interaction. However it lists some exemptions, and one of them is this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The prohibitions in subsection (1)(a), (b) or (c) of this section do not apply to subscribers or members of their family who perform the acts prohibited in subsection (1) of this section in their homes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm not sure if this means people can record their family members inside their home or if a person can record in their home and their family members' homes. My housemate and I are not family members. I'm not sure exactly where the videos were taken, could be a common area or something like a bedroom.</p>
<p>Here's a link to the relevant statute: <a href="https://law.justia.com/codes/oregon/2019/volume-04/chapter-165/section-165-540/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">chapter 165 section 540</a></p>

<p>It is legal, see <a href="http://media.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty_impact/other/p17027coll5_17778.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Oregon v. Rainey</a>. Appellant threatened a neighbor outside of the neighbor's house, and the recording was done inside the house. The court rules that the &quot;inside their homes&quot; exception applied, because the exception pertains to where the recording is done and not where the conversation takes place. The person recording and the person recorded do not have to be in the same family: it is simply a matter of where the recording takes place. However, a visitor to your home could not make a legal secret recording, because it is not their home.</p>
<p>A search of Oregon appellate rulings does not clarify how &quot;home&quot; is to be interpreted under this law. This suggests a possible line for pursuing the matter (but it would require courts to decide what &quot;home&quot; means). The use of &quot;home&quot; is completely clear in the case of a single-family house, but not clear in the case of a shared rental structure. To the extent that two people simply live under one roof with separate rooms and relatively separate lives (e.g. upstairs vs. downstairs), and if the recording was done in <em>your</em> part of the house, one can make a credible case that your room is not in their home. The issue has not come up in court in such a way that the courts have addressed that nuance on the word &quot;home&quot;.</p>
<p>There are specific laws prohibiting recordings (not just communications) either involving sex acts, bathroom functions, and other things that a reasonable person would object to their disclosure. As stipulated by the OP, the subject matter of the recording is not something that a reasonable person would object to disclosing.</p>
