Picture this: your coworker, who has seniority over you due to his/her position, calls you into his/her office for a talk. As you go in, s/he asks if you mind if the secretary joins you. Of course that’s fine, you say. Then this coworker begins to ask a series of questions about why s/he feels there is a communication gap between you and why you seem to constantly be questioning his/her authority, despite the fact that the things you do are only part of what is necessary to your job and despite the fact that s/he is not your employer. You try to keep an even temper while responding to this grilling but then notice that the secretary is writing down every word you say. When you ask your coworker why she is writing down your words, the coworker responds that it is so s/he has ‘written testimony’ in case s/he needs to show it to your supervisors. Your permission was never asked to record your words.
Question: Is this a breach of privacy? In any other situation in which you record someone’s words–at least in the academic world–you always have to get permission from them to do so. Or is this only when you are actually using the information in a study? But wouldn’t the fact that there was some intent to show this record to others also require that they receive permission?
Gentle reader, what do YOU think?