Shocked to have been secretly recorded at work.

[Whataninvasionofprivacy]

I work as a TA in school, and last week at the end of a lesson, the teacher called me over and indicated (behind the kid’s backs) to the class cupboard. She then whispered “Will you turn off the iPad?” I wasn’t sure what she was on about, but she then whispered that she’d just recorded the entire lesson, but didn’t want the kids to know. She had been told to do this by a senior staff member.

Am I being ridiculous to feel annoyed by this? I’m sure I should have been told beforehand. Also what about parents who don’t normally consent, they had no choice in this case.

no - and primarily my issue isn't with recording children, that is a whole other issue - it is recording OP without her knowledge in breach of data protection LAWS.

They are laws, not guidelines.

I work in IT and the ability to record absolutely bloody everything is a flipping nightmare for those of us concerned with privacy and data protection laws.

If you are going to record you need to have the approval of every single person who may be on the recording. And if anyone says "no" the recording is not allowed. If anyone at any time says "actually, i've changed my mind, no" the recording must be stopped and everything recorded up to then must be destroyed. That is the Law.

ETA:
The fact that during a pandemic, which was a whole new thing for a lot of us, things were put up with and introduced that in hindsight breached laws is not an excuse to keep those things going now we are more educated about it.
It is nonsensical to harp on back to that.

I wonder if my voice responding my name, date of birth, NHS number, medications or medical history during a 'calls are recorded for training and quality purposes' phone conversation with my GP receptionist means I shouldn't access medical care if I don't consent, or whether they're wrong for using technology to get better in difficult circumstances, or it actually isn't as important as people screaming 'but GDPR' makes it seem.

When you agree to the terms "this call may be recorded and used for training" - you have agreed to exactly that. At any point in the call you can say that you recind your consent and that the recording is to be permanently deleted and may not be used for anything.
GPs (and other orgs) cannot deny you service based on your agreement or not of those conditions.

What happens to those recordings is strictly controlled.

And in breach of employment laws.

Agreed re Pandemic too ... My organisation had to do lots of things in unusual ways during the pandemic because somehow things needed to keep happening, in fact my team won awards for our innovation in making things happen in that time....but of course we reflected as we came out of the pandemic about what changes we should keep and which should be jettisoned

And in breach of employment laws.

Agreed re Pandemic too ... My organisation had to do lots of things in unusual ways during the pandemic because somehow things needed to keep happening, in fact my team won awards for our innovation in making things happen in that time....but of course we reflected as we came out of the pandemic about what changes we should keep and which should be jettisoned

as it turns out, this whole recording stuff thing has meant a lot of work for us and we have developed an app that helps keep all the info about who agrees and who doesn't (anonymously) agree to recordings. Silver linings and all that.

@SweetSakura but it is ok? We are literally told to do it in our training. Explain who it's harming please?

@Perfect28 you’re told to do what during your training?

To covertly record colleagues and children? I really don't think you are.

It's a huge employment law issue form someone to be secretly recorded, before we even go into GDPR and other legislation

Earlier it was suggested that the children couldn’t be told they were being recorded as they would change their behaviour. Isn’t that the point of why it is wrong to covertly record someone? If they change their behaviour when being recorded it shows that do not consent to their usual behaviour being recorded.

For those in the profession who think this is mountain out of molehill territory, I would strongly suggest to start looking at this in some depth within your teams. You may not agree with the importance of the concerns raised in this thread, or just view them as ridiculous restraints, but the bottom line is the LAW on these matters, and whether the policies you operate under are up to the job. As stated upthread and worth repeating again I think, individuals are accountable for their part in data breaches. None of us enjoy it, but it's in everyone's interest to be absolutely 💯 clear on regs, particularly children!

Agreed and also I would suggest speaking to your school's DPO, or asking someone too (this may be an external person as some schools have a contract for an external person or a local authority DP team to do their DPO work)

( and also speak to HR /employment lawyer about employment law implications of covert recording of colleagues. If they know their stuff they will be pretty robust about it)

Giving birth? In a gynae exam, being told a loved one has died? All ok as it's helpful for training?..

Report this to your head teacher, this is illegal. If they don't act on it, next stop is the board of governors- actually, if you don't feel comfortable talking to your head, go straight to the governors. This is all sorts of wrong.

So you would be happy your gynae exam was recorded, used in training for other medics?

It because MANY MANY posters on here think it’s a GDPR breach to photograph a child without the parent’s consent.

As you should know, GDPR is more nuanced than that, what I was trying to explain is how “consent” works, and what constitutes as “legitimate purpose” and what “processing” data might mean.

What I have said from the start is, the OP should of been told she would be in the footage.she is an employee, and has rights.

But the parents up in arms about their explicit consent not being granted for any image of their child being captured, and auto suggesting a GDPR breach, they are very wrong.

The law is where you would expect reasonable privacy, so a state of undress would come under that.

In really simple terms (because there are some further nuances) nobody should be able to photograph you in your own home without permission - e.g - a peeping Tom.

But if your in a beach setting and decide to go topless, your boobs can be photographed by most people legitimately

There are specific laws about recordings of employees, and it would be in almost all employment contracts about the legal use of monitoring in this way, even if it said refer to the current policy.

That’s because employers also don’t want their employees covertly recording them also 🙄.

The amount of hysteria on this thread is astonishing!

Teacher records her lesson on a stationary iPad, equates to a Netflix special and tens of children being tracked down by their paternal grandmother, who is currently on a no contact basis, for suggesting baby rice when the PFB was 4 months old.

But the parents up in arms about their explicit consent not being granted for any image of their child being captured, and auto suggesting a GDPR breach, they are very wrong

The parent who is protecting their child during or following court proceedings, whose location absolutely must not be disclosed, would strongly disagree with you.

There will (or should be) a clear privacy policy telling employees that they are being recorded in certain locations and for what purpose.
The CCTV is also visible (hence why you know about it) not covert. Op was describing covert (aka hidden) surveillance.

Yes but I also strongly suspect the tens and tens of those parents in this thread aren’t concealing their child’s images for this reason.

They are just being awkward because they think they have the right to.

I strongly suspect no child’s privacy right's have been broken or breached. And it’s just a bog standard video for the sake of advancing the teachers skills.

All the reports that need to be made to the ICO, etc etc. stop pearl clutching. It’s bonkers