Violation of Privacy (surveillance and voyeurism offenses)
NH Violation of Privacy Statute
Communications · Location · Other
Makes it a crime to install or use a device without consent to observe, photograph, record or transmit images or sounds in a private place (restrooms, locker rooms, homes), to capture a person's private body parts, or to capture from outside a private place images, sounds, location or movement not ordinarily perceptible outside. It also criminalizes sharing one's own sexual recordings without the other participant's consent. Investigative surveillance by employees acting on articulable suspicion is carved out.
- Where
- New Hampshire
- Citation
- N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. 644:9
- Status
- In force
- Last amended
- 2024-07-14
- Enforced by
- State and county prosecutors
- People can sue
- No
- Penalties
- Class A misdemeanor for unconsented surveillance devices and dissemination of sexual recordings; misdemeanor for voyeuristic viewing and peering into private places; class B felony for repeat offenses or where the victim is a child, and class A felony for repeat child offenses.
- Applies to
- Any person, including businesses and employees installing or using surveillance devices
Practices it requires
- Do not install or use, without consent of those entitled to privacy, any device to observe, photograph, record or transmit images or sounds in a private place or of a person's private body parts.RSA 644:9, I(a)-(b), II
- Do not use devices outside a private place to capture images, location, movement or sounds from inside it that would not ordinarily be perceptible outside.RSA 644:9, I(c)
- Do not disseminate a photo or video of oneself engaged in sexual activity with another without that person's express consent.RSA 644:9, III
Other duties
- Public and private employees conducting investigations supported by articulable suspicion of illegal activity or rule violations are not limited by paragraphs I and II.RSA 644:9, V
Sources
Checked against these sources on 2026-09-25 by research agent (Claude), primary sources.
Unverified: effective_date: original enactment 1971, 518:1; exact effective date not shown, left null
Research reference, not legal advice.