Employer filming and uploading to YouTube (allowed?)

[Notmyregular]

I’ve name changed.

Anyone HR or legal knowledge please around GDPR or employment law I’d be super super grateful. Public sector employee. Employer has started doing regular open meetings with partner agencies. On a particular topic. Think quarterly for a couple of hours up to 100 participants both internal and external -all professionals. Many in public facing, frontline roles. Turns out these meeting are being filmed and put up on YouTube by the employer.
Is this allowed? I feel it puts frontline staff at risk. Too much private info going into the public domain. Partners wandering round in the background, any and anyone getting a view of inside of workers houses. Full first and last names on screen. What should I say to the employer in terms of objecting? It feels all kinds of wrong to me. I found out by chance as we were never informed. Can I ask them to cease and remove the videos?

I presume these are meetings on Zoom or similar. You can alleviate some of your concerns by blurring the background. However, if they haven't sought consent, this sounds like a breach of GDPR. Make it clear to your employer that you do not consent.

Surely the meeting highlighted it was being recorded? You generally have to click agree on entering the meeting or when recording begins ? were you advised of where it would be published?

i am in public sector Ireland we have to be in a room alone for all meetings being recorded it is in our company's WFH policy.

I go to large quarterly meetings, hosted by LA, but not employed by them. I also click yes to recording as naively assumed this would only be for use internally unless I was informed. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to be asked for consent, as pp say, it's worth checking GDPR.

Just because it's uploaded to YouTube doesn't mean anyone can find it - our work videos are unlisted if they're internal but published externally if they're for public viewing. So I'd check that first. Whoever organises the meetings needs to make it abundantly clear that it will be recorded and published, and give participants the opportunity to refuse consent and leave the meeting.

Your company probably has an employee privacy notice which gives them permission to do this. It was likely sent to you with your contract or posted in a notice board or intranet.

Covering it in a privacy notice, even if they do, does not automatically mean they can do this. They have to have a lawful basis for what they have done.

Agreed, but see what it says in the notice it may well cover these examples.

They have probably picked either public task or legitimate interests as their lawful basis - most avoid consent if there is another option available (and in fact the ICO recommend not relying on consent where there is a power imbalance such as employer/employee relationship). It is pretty poor practice not to tell all attendees that it’s being recorded and will be made available though imo even if they have got it covered in their privacy notice. They should also be making more of an effort to avoid accidental captures of others too!

Oh wow thanks all for your responses. I thought my post had gone into a black hole never to emerge. The meetings aren’t zoom but another similar platform. There’s no buttons to press to agree to filming, only in the last two sessions have they even highlighted that they film but never mention it goes straight up onto YouTube (fully in the public domain). And if someone joined the meeting late they would completely miss the info that they film. I always blur my background but many others don’t it’s very random. I’ve seen all sorts. You can even hear random phone calls in the background on occasion.
Your responses have made me think I’m going to push back more strongly. Thanks all.

By the way yes they could probably argue it’s in the public interest but my contract is so super old it would never cover anything like this.