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RECORDING OF CONVERSATIONS WITHOUT CONSENT

In Labour News, Labour News Teazer by Pieter2 Comments

Question: May face to face conversations be recorded without consent?

Answer: Yes, but only if the person recording the conversation without consent is a participant in the conversation.

Brief explanation: The interception of communication (which includes recordings) is regulated by the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act of 2002 (RICA). RICA is very technical and deals with a wide variety of direct and indirect communications. For the purposes of answering our question, we shall focus only on the recording of conversations.   The starting point of RICA is that communications  may not be recorded without consent. However, no consent is required if the person who is recording the conversation is a party to the conversation and is not a law enforcement officer.

Effectively, RICA permits unlimited monitoring, interception and recording of conversations by participants in conversations. To date there have been no reported judgements in which this has been challenged on the basis that it violates a person’s constitutional right to privacy. In S v Kidson, a criminal case dealing with RICA’s predecessor Act in 1999, an accomplice to a murder was given a voice-activated tape recorder to hide in his pocket by the police. The accomplice was then visited by Kidson at her house with the concealed recorder and recorded a conversation in which the details of the planning and execution of her husband’s murder were discussed. Kidson’s lawyers argued that the recording should not be allowed into evidence as it infringed the provisions of RICA’s predecessor Act and infringed Kidson’s constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy. Judge Cameron held that the purpose of the Act was to protect communications from eavesdroppers and not from participants. It looks like the legislature had the same intention with RICA.

Incidentally, the same principles would apply in the case of participants in telephone conversations or other electronic communications.

Further comment: While parties may have a legal right to record conversations without consent in certain circumstances, this is not to be encouraged in the employment relationship. Not only is it discourteous, but it could harm the relationship of trust that should exist between employer and employee.

Lourens Roodt for www.labourwise.co.za

Comments

  1. Can someone video record you with their personal phone at work and use it as evidence. Because normally we have surveillance cameras at work an

    1. If the video recording includes audio (i.e. the sound is recorded), the principles in the article about the recording of conversations would apply. Video recording is currently not directly regulated by legislation in South Africa. So, it should be generally be permissible unless it infringes someone’s right to dignity or privacy (e.g. video recording or surveillance cameras in a changing room).

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