Recording a session in California.

The statute California Penal Code section 632

Section 632 turns on the word confidential, which the section defines as a conversation carried on in circumstances where a party could reasonably expect that nobody is listening or recording. A paid one to one session in a private room, on a private video call, or on a phone call is that, and a class of thirty in a hall is not. The section bans recording such a conversation without the agreement of all parties to it, and it does not make an exception for a person who is themselves in the conversation. California courts have also applied it to a call between a person in California and a person somewhere with a weaker rule, so a coach in Los Angeles cannot rely on a client's state having a one party rule.

The practical shape in California is to ask on the recording, before anything else is said, and to let the answer be part of the file. A written consent in an intake form is worth having and is not a substitute: the statute is about the conversation being recorded, so the agreement belongs at the top of that conversation.

A recording of a named person, and the transcript made from it, are personal information under the Act. A practitioner large enough to fall inside it owes the client notice of what is collected and why, and has to answer a request to know, to delete or to correct within the statutory window. Most independent practitioners fall under the revenue and volume thresholds and owe none of it as law, but the client expectation the Act created does not check your turnover.