Police Scanner Laws in California (2026): Is It Legal?

The law in California

California has no law restricting the ownership of a police scanner or its use in a vehicle, and routine listening at home, in public, or while mobile is legal. The state does have one scanner-specific statute: Penal Code Section 636.5 makes it a misdemeanor to intercept public safety radio communications for the purpose of assisting in a crime or avoiding arrest, or to divulge intercepted communications to a suspect to help them escape arrest, trial, conviction, or punishment. Lawful monitoring without criminal intent falls outside the statute (status as of August 2026).

Enforcement reality

No enforcement history. Scanner use is fully protected.

What you can monitor in California

With a police scanner in California, you can legally listen to any unencrypted public safety channel, including:

• Fire department dispatch and operations
• EMS and ambulance communications
• NOAA weather alerts and emergency broadcasts
• Unencrypted police channels (where available)

In practice, of the 3,297 talkgroups catalogued across California in our database, 2,497 are recorded as being in the clear and 770 as encrypted.

The radio systems most often recorded in California are United States Department of Defense (14C), Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), Los Angeles City (STRS - Simulcast Trunked Radio System) Project 25, Los Angeles Countywide Integrated Radio System (CWIRS), California Radio Interoperable System (CRIS), National Science and Technology Network (Mt. Lukens, Oat, Sierra).

Before buying a scanner, check whether your local agencies in California have encrypted their communications. If they have, your scanner won't be able to receive their transmissions regardless of legal status.

What's already encrypted in California

Scanner use being legal in California does not mean everything is listenable. Our database currently tracks 186 agencies in California that encrypt at least some radio traffic, across 25 counties. Of those, 77 encrypt all monitored channels rather than only a few.

The encryption most commonly recorded in California is P25 AES-256 (156 agencies), P25 DES-OFB (27 agencies), and DMR Enhanced Privacy (1 agency).

38 of these 186 records have been verified against RadioReference system data; the remainder are unverified and may be out of date. Encryption status changes without notice — confirm the current status of any specific agency on RadioReference before relying on it.

Frequently asked questions