A common question many employees have is whether they can record conversations in the workplace.\u00a0 This question is usually within the context of a workplace dispute.\u00a0 For instance, the employee may feel belittled or bullied by a co-worker or superior and desire to record conversations that take place in order to \u201cprove\u201d that they have been bullied or belittled.\u00a0 Sometimes the employee will advise that co-worker or superior that they will be recording the said conversation.\u00a0 Other times, the employee will simply record the conversation and not set out to the co-worker or superior that they are doing so.<\/p>\n
We offer a caveat with respect to recording conversations at the workplace.\u00a0 The first is that secretly or covertly recording a conversation that the employee is not a part of is a crime.\u00a0 Therefore, please do not do so or risk sanction under the\u00a0Criminal Code<\/em>.<\/p>\n The second caveat is that while to record a conversation that the employee is a part of may not be a crime regardless of whether or not the employee sought consent of the other party, it is imperative that the employee proceed with extreme caution when doing so.\u00a0 This is because the employer may see such an act as a breach of trust or confidentiality and may even decide to dismiss that employee for cause because of those recordings.\u00a0 The employer may also have a policy prohibiting the secret recording of conversations in the workplace.<\/p>\n For instance, in\u00a0Hart v. Parrish & Heimbecker Ltd.<\/em>, 2017 MBQB 26, an employee sought damages for wrongful dismissal against their employer.\u00a0 The employer alleged that they had just cause to terminate his employment.\u00a0 The employee was found to have secretly made recordings of in-person meetings between himself and others at his workplace.\u00a0 The judge held in that decision that his conduct amounted to a violation of his confidentiality and privacy obligations to his employer. The employee\u2019s claim for wrongful dismissal was dismissed.<\/p>\n In general, if an employee desires to record a conversation between themselves and another at work, it strongly advisable for that employee to clearly set out to all involved that they will be recording the conversation and to seek their consent prior to doing so.\u00a0 It is not a good idea to secretly record conversations at the workplace without the consent of the parties participating in that conversation because the legality and the implications of such an act are more complicated than first assumed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A common question many employees have is whether they can record conversations in the workplace.\u00a0 This question is usually within the context of a workplace dispute.\u00a0 For instance, the employee may feel belittled or bullied by a co-worker or superior and desire to record conversations that take place in order to \u201cprove\u201d that they have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1808,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Recording_Boss_Pic.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeilikmanlaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}