Oakland, CA Privacy & Surveillance: Recording & Consent Laws (2026)

08 by Ordinance No. 13327 in September 2015, protects the right to photograph and record officers. Subsection A states that the fact a person takes a photograph or makes an audio or video recording of a police officer or peace officer while the officer is in a public place, or the recorder is somewhere they have a right to be, does not constitute, in and of itself, a violation. Subsection B goes further, stating that the same act of recording does not by itself constitute reasonable suspicion to detain the person or probable cause to arrest them.

28 and from any other penalty provision of the Municipal Code, so the ordinance functions purely as a legal shield for people recording officers rather than as a prohibition with fines attached. Read together, the three subsections mean an Oakland Police Department officer cannot lawfully treat the mere act of pointing a phone camera or audio recorder at them in public, from a lawful vantage point, as grounds for a stop, search or arrest, and cannot cite the recording itself as any kind of offense.

The ordinance does not address separate legal questions such as interfering with an officer's duties, trespassing to get a better angle, or California's two-party consent wiretapping law for private conversations; those remain governed by other state and local law.