Singapore tribunal backs dismissal over secret workplace recording

Singapore’s Employment Claims Tribunal, a forum for employment disputes, rejected one wrongful-dismissal claim in an Oct. 23 written judgment after a managing director secretly recorded a workplace meeting, Channel NewsAsia reported.

The case matters for employers and staff because the tribunal said no reported Singapore judgment had directly addressed whether covertly recording a company meeting was misconduct serious enough to justify immediate dismissal.

Court documents cited by CNA identified the claimant only as JJT, a managing director at a public relations firm. She met the company’s president and chief human resources officer, and the president saw that her phone was recording the discussion without consent.

In its written judgment, the tribunal said JJT’s conduct was “sufficient to destroy the trust and confidence” in the employment relationship, according to CNA.

Amarjit Kaur, head of Withers KhattarWong’s Singapore employment team, told CNA that making a recording may not itself be a criminal offence. “The recording may breach the employment contract, an express workplace policy, duties of confidentiality, data protection requirements and/or the implied obligation of trust and confidence in the employment relationship,” she said.

Chooi Jing Yen, director of Chooi Jing Yen LLC, told CNA that Singapore has no data-privacy legislation directly banning a person from recording without another participant’s knowledge. He said common-law protections and harassment laws may still be relevant, but there is “nothing that directly says you cannot record a conversation.”

Alvin Aloysius Goh, chief executive officer of the Singapore Human Resources Institute, said covert recordings should generally be discouraged at work. “If employees or managers begin to assume that conversations may be secretly recorded, people can become more guarded, which can undermine candid and constructive workplace conversations,” he told CNA.

The lawyers cited by CNA framed the ruling as fact-specific rather than a blanket rule. Kaur said the absence of an express workplace ban on recordings would not necessarily decide the issue, and that employers should examine the circumstances and conduct a fair inquiry before imposing a sanction.

Harjeet Kaur of Harjeet Kaur Chambers LLC told CNA that the content of the discussion also matters. “Ultimately, the more private, confidential or sensitive the workplace discussion, the greater the likelihood that a covert recording may be regarded as misconduct, even if the recording is not in itself unlawful,” she said.

The article also identified a countervailing concern for employees alleging misconduct. The Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices advises workers to retain evidence of wrongdoing, including recordings, while Goh said employers should consider both the reason for the recording and the underlying allegation.

CNA reported that a covert recording is not automatically barred as evidence because it was made without consent. Kaur said the Evidence Act, the statute governing how courts assess evidence, starts with whether the material is relevant to a fact in issue.

Kaur said a court or tribunal may still assess whether a recording is authentic, complete, reliable and properly contextualised. CNA also cited a recent pregnancy wrongful-dismissal case in which a recording of a call with a boss was described by the tribunal as “the crucial piece of evidence,” showing the contrast between admissibility and workplace discipline.

Chooi told CNA that obtaining consent before recording a workplace conversation is the safest course, because it reduces arguments that the recording should not be used or that contractual duties were breached.