There was a time when a conversation in the office hallway or a whispered aside in a conference room felt completely private. Those days are, well, gone.
Whether we like it or not, technology has made it exceedingly easy to record what used to be fleeting words — after all, pretty much every worker has a device in their pocket that can record both audio and video at will. The end result is clear: It’s wise to treat every conversation as if it could end up online, for all to see.
The Cloudfare firing
Consider the case of the Cloudflare employee, Brittany Pietsch, who recorded a video call in which she was fired and then shared it widely. The video ran for nine minutes and 15 seconds, and it swiftly found a large audience. It’s a painful watch. In it, you can see a worker who claims she had received nothing but positive feedback suddenly confronted with a script explaining why she wasn’t meeting expectations.
She pressed for answers: “Why are you doing this and not my manager? We’ve never met, so this seems a little odd.” She pointed out that she was hired just months earlier, was on a three-month training ramp, and never once heard any indication of poor performance. She asked for clarity: “I’m just definitely confused, and I would love an explanation that makes sense.”
This conversation — once private, once the kind of event that might have lingered only in memory — was now public. It prompted reactions from viewers around the globe. Pietsch noted in a LinkedIn post that her manager had “no idea” it was coming, that he was “just as blindsided as I was.” Soon enough, the CEO of Cloudflare himself responded publicly, acknowledging the video was “painful to watch,” conceding that while dismissals are sometimes necessary, the manner in which this one was handled was deeply flawed.
“Managers should always be involved,” he wrote. “HR should be involved, but it shouldn’t be outsourced to them. No employee should ever actually be surprised they weren’t performing.”
3 recent rulings: Courts grappling with the issue
This shift isn’t only happening on social media. The courts are also grappling with the implications of employees secretly recording their colleagues, supervisors, and HR representatives.
Three recent cases show just how complex the legal questions can be, how the lines of trust and ethics are being redrawn.
In one Alberta case involving H&R Block, a former vice-president (identified as T.W.) secretly recorded workplace conversations. The employer discovered these recordings after the dismissal and argued they constituted after-acquired cause. The Court of King’s Bench of Alberta, however, decided that the issue was too nuanced for a quick resolution. According to Justice J.R. Farrington, “the issues in this action cannot be determined fairly and justly on the paper record alone.”
The judge noted that the reasoning behind the recordings, the workplace environment, and the pressures the employee may have felt all required a full trial. The law, it seems, does not categorically forbid secret recordings. Context matters. Sometimes, as in Rooney v. GSL Chev City, recordings were found justifiable due to a “relationship power imbalance.” In other instances, as in Shalagin v. Mercer Celgar Limited Partnership, courts upheld dismissal for such behavior.
The Rooney case in Calgary is instructive. There, an employee recorded his supervisors without their knowledge, believing he was being constructively dismissed. The employer tried to argue after the fact that this justified firing him for cause. But the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta admitted the recordings into evidence and concluded that, given the circumstances, the employee’s actions were “warranted.”
As the court put it, “Mr. Rooney’s resort to recording conversations with his supervisor occurred after the employment relationship had broken down.” The court acknowledged the recordings might be distasteful to some, but it did not find them illegal or automatically cause for dismissal. The court ultimately awarded Rooney 18 months’ pay in lieu of notice.
Compare that with the case of the senior financial analyst at Mercer Celgar. Over nearly a decade, this employee recorded meetings and training sessions, first to improve his English and later, he claimed, to gather evidence of unfair treatment. But the courts — in a decision that survived appeal — found his behavior crossed a line. The recordings were seen as a “profound level of ‘untrustworthiness,’” and the appellate court concluded that they justified dismissal for cause. The judge noted that “the recording activity was underhanded and would be regarded by most employers as misconduct undermining the trust relationship.”
No one-size-fits-all answer
There is no one-size-fits-all answer here. Secret recordings may sometimes be viewed as a defensive measure in a troubled workplace, a way to protect one’s rights when power imbalances are at play. At other times, persistent and covert capturing of everyday interactions can be seen as a fundamental breach of trust, a violation of privacy that destroys the core of the employment relationship.
What’s clear is that technology has changed the game. Employers and employees alike must now consider that any conversation — be it a termination meeting, a performance review, or a casual chat — could be recorded. This doesn’t mean the workplace should become a realm of robotic politeness or constant paranoia. Rather, it suggests we perhaps need a recalibration of expectations.
Tips for HR and managers
For managers and HR professionals, the advice is simple: Always be prepared to explain the reasons for your decisions. If you’re terminating someone, know why and be clear. If it’s performance-based, ensure the employee isn’t hearing that for the first time in the termination call. If it’s a without-cause dismissal, say so.
As seen in the Cloudflare case, vague and scripted answers delivered by unfamiliar faces come off poorly, especially when broadcast to the world. There is a human cost when these moments go viral, and employers should consider how their processes look — and feel — to an audience beyond that virtual meeting room.
Lessons for workers
For employees, the lesson may be more subtle. While it’s legal in many places for a participant in a conversation to record it without the other’s consent, the question remains: At what cost to the relationship and your professional reputation? Courts have shown sympathy in cases where employees recorded to protect themselves in a broken environment.
But when that recording goes on year after year, when it involves multiple colleagues and managers, and when it seems more like a fishing expedition than a safeguard, you may lose the very trust you’re trying to preserve. Plus, these things live on forever in the online world — something all parties need to keep in mind.
We once relied on the privacy of in-person dialogues and the understanding that not every word would be etched into the permanent record of the internet. Now, a smartphone can immortalize the worst (or best) moments of a career. But perhaps this can be a catalyst for better behavior all around. If you know you might be recorded — if you suspect that the private could become public — how might that shape your tone, your empathy, your honesty?
The courts have shown a willingness to wrestle with the complexity of these situations. And in the workplace, as Pietsch’s viral termination video reminds us, what once was sealed behind the office door can now be shared, analyzed, and commented upon by a half-million strangers within days.
In this environment, the wisest course might be to take the advice that used to be widely shared when it comes to email: Act like your grandmother might read the words. Or, in the new tech era, hear and see them.
