Texas Has No Right-to-Record Statute, Only Section 38.15 Limits

The starting point is what Texas did not do. Searches of the full text of every Texas code on the Legislative Council's own statutes system return no provision using the phrases "record a peace officer," "recording a peace officer," "photograph a peace officer" or "right to record." Texas has no counterpart to a dedicated bystander-recording section, and a Texas page that promises one is describing another state's law. What Texas has instead is an offense the recorder can be charged with, and the elements of that offense are the practical rules.

Section 38.15(a)(1) requires criminal negligence, not intent, and it reaches conduct that interrupts, disrupts, impedes, or otherwise interferes with a peace officer "while the peace officer is performing a duty or exercising authority imposed or granted by law." The section extends the same protection to emergency medical personnel, firefighters fighting or investigating a fire, police animals, animal control officers acting under Chapter 821 or 822 of the Health and Safety Code, public health and environmental inspectors, and, since Acts 2025, 89th Legislature, Regular Session, Chapter 478 (S.B. 482), effective September 1, 2025, employees and agents of a utility. The utility category is defined at length in Subsection (e)(2) and now covers broadband providers under Utilities Code Section 253.0001 and retail water or sewer utility service under Water Code Section 13.002. An offense is a Class B misdemeanor under Subsection (b), which Penal Code Section 12.22 punishes by up to 180 days in county jail, a fine up to $2,000, or both.

Subsection (d) is the provision most often argued by people arrested while filming: it is a defense to prosecution that the interruption, disruption, impediment, or interference alleged consisted of speech only. Filming is conduct rather than speech, so Subsection (d) does not by itself cover the act of holding up a camera, but it does cover the running commentary, the questions, and the criticism that usually accompany it. Subsection (c) supplies a second, narrower Texas defense that has no relation to recording but shows how specific the legislature gets when it wants to protect conduct: warning a driver of a peace officer enforcing Subtitle C, Title 7 of the Transportation Code, which is the traffic-rules subtitle, is a defense to an (a)(1) charge.

Subsection (d-1) turns on publication rather than filming. If the State shows at trial that the actor intentionally disseminated an officer's home address, home telephone number, emergency contact information, or social security number, or any other information specifically described by Government Code Section 552.117(a), a rebuttable presumption of interference arises. Subsection (d-2) exempts a radio or television station licensed by the Federal Communications Commission and a newspaper that is a free paper of general circulation or qualified to publish legal notices, published at least once a week, and available and of interest to the general public. A person posting the same footage from a personal account gets no such exemption.

Audio is governed separately. Texas Penal Code Section 16.02(b) makes intentional interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication a felony of the second degree, punished under Section 12.33 by two to twenty years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and a fine of up to $10,000. Subsection (c)(4)(A) is the Texas one-party consent rule: it is an affirmative defense that a person not acting under color of law intercepted the communication where that person is a party to it. The definition that does the real work is in Article 18A.001(19) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, which defines an "oral communication" as one "uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that the communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying that expectation." Words an officer speaks aloud to a driver at the roadside are not uttered under circumstances justifying such an expectation, so they fall outside the definition and outside Section 16.02.

The one Texas statute that names filming officers cuts the other way. Government Code Subchapter M of Chapter 614, added by Acts 2021, 87th Legislature, Regular Session, Chapter 134 (H.B. 54), effective May 26, 2021, provides in Section 614.232 that a law enforcement agency may not authorize a person to accompany and film a peace officer acting in the line of duty for the purpose of producing a reality television program. Section 614.231(2) excludes reporting on a matter of public concern by a journalist as defined by Article 38.11 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, so the ban is aimed at entertainment ride-alongs, not news coverage and not bystanders.

22. The State must prove criminal negligence and actual interruption, disruption, impediment, or interference with the officer's duty, so standing back and filming without obstructing is not the offense the section describes. Two defenses are written into the statute: Subsection (d) where the alleged interference consisted of speech only, and Subsection (c) where the conduct was intended to warn a motorist of traffic enforcement. 23(a) requires that evidence obtained in violation of the constitution or laws of Texas or the United States be excluded, and it directs the trial court to instruct the jury to disregard that evidence if the issue is raised.

02(f), which means two to twenty years of imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000. Publication of an officer's protected home information can also trigger the rebuttable presumption of interference in Subsection (d-1), unless the publisher is an FCC-licensed broadcaster or a qualifying newspaper under Subsection (d-2).