Question:
I'm writing a paper for school and I'm quite confused with what I'm finding online, so if anyone knows, please help!

Is it legal for a restaurant to record conversations the people are having and have them playing in the back where the food is prepared. If the purpose is to get the order faster (allowing the chef to hear the order and get started while the waiter is taking it down to get a heads start) but still being able to hear any part of the couples conversation, would this be considered legal or illegal?

I'm leaning towards illegal. Any ideas? Please & Thank you!

My Answer:
Now this may be different depending on which of the 50 states of the USA that you are living in. I am not familiar with the laws of all 50 of them (actually, I don't even know all the laws of my own state) so I cannot say for sure. I suggest that you check on your state's local laws for this. So with that in mind, here we go:


Generally speaking, it is depending on the reasonable expectation of privacy of the customers.

Case #1: If the restaurant is a buffet, bar, fast food restaurant, or just about any kind of normal restaurants where the owner of the restaurant does NOT guarantee privacy, then it is totally LEGAL to record both audio and video. You are stepping into the restaurant knowing that there's no guarantee of such privacy.

Case #2: If it is one of those restaurants that are designed for couples to come and privately enjoy their dinner date (you know, with some softening music in the background and some dim, illuminating lights, whatever), where customers are separated so that they cannot see each other or cannot hear each other (or both) once they sat down at the table (unless someone yelled out loud), then it is typically legal to record the video but NOT the audio. The owner, under this setting, is guaranteeing some sort of privacy to his customers. But again, this might be different depending on each state.

Stepping into a restaurant or any kind of business and offices at all is just like visiting a website or a forum. By entering and using their service, you are agree to their term of service. A small business or in this case, a restaurant, is consider as a private business property--it doesn't give the owner the freedom like with his house, but it doesn't restrict him like with a public property either. The owner sure does have the privilege ("the privilege," NOT "the right") to monitor all actions within his property and justify it as "for the purpose of crime prevention." However, he doesn't have the privilege to monitor the restroom or changing room because that would surely violate your privacy, especially if you are women. This is business-to-customer relation, NOT person-to-person relation. The laws where they restrict the person who is NOT involved in the conversation from recording the conversation does NOT apply here.


It's the same with your emails and private messages, you know. All of which are being keep in a database, and when necessary, the owners of the service can pull them out anytime they want, without the needs of getting your consent.


Again, I suggest you to talk about this with your law teacher or a lawyer. They know about laws much more than anyone on here, and certainly a lot more than I am. Oh and since we are speaking of law, all of the contents in this answer are copyrighted by me at the moment I typed them; all rights are reserved. That means if anyone copy and paste it somewhere else WITHOUT at least modifying it by 10%, I can sue him/her. Isn't law fun? xD ~lol


Hope this helps,
Ng2491 :-)

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