Is this legal?

General_Grant

Sandtree said:

Jillanddy said:

DeletedUser said:

To record CCTV from a commercial premises onto a personal mobile phone. 

The person who was being  recorded has a possible  disciplinary coming up, and I saw my boss recording the CCTV onto her personal mobile phone. 

Is this legal?

Almost certainly not. 

What law do you think they are breaking?

Lets assume its a CCTV camera on the side of the building pointing at the premises car park... what's the difference between recording the person on your phone from the window next to the camera -v- recording from the camera's display?

DeletedUser said:

My boss is the data controller. 

So your manager is the Data Protection Officer but you dont know about data protection? What other hats does your manager have that you work for them?  

The OP said their boss was the Data Controller (sounds like the top of the tree) rather than a DPO.  

[Deleted User]

Thrugelmir said:

DeletedUser said:

To record CCTV from a commercial premises onto a personal mobile phone. 

How do you know it's a personal mobile not a works one? 

because we don't have work phones, it was her personal phone 

TELLIT01

You may not have a phone supplied by the company, which doesn't automatically mean those further up the tree aren't.  Are you certain that the phone being used is not one provided to this person by the company?  They may be copying it to their phone with the intention of showing it during the disciplinary hearing.

[Deleted User]

TELLIT01 said:

You may not have a phone supplied by the company, which doesn't automatically mean those further up the tree aren't.  Are you certain that the phone being used is not one provided to this person by the company?  They may be copying it to their phone with the intention of showing it during the disciplinary hearing.

100% sure it was her personal phone, I could tell by the cover on it. 
I only work for a small organisation. No one has a company phone. 
As others have said, it's probably against GDPR to copy such a thing to a personal phone. If the CCTV needed to be viewed at the hearing, it can be downloaded to a PC.

oh_really

You've stated the disciplinary doesn't concern you, so why the concern?

[Deleted User]

oh_really said:

You've stated the disciplinary doesn't concern you, so why the concern?

Curiosity. 

Undervalued

Actually I think it is less clear cut than some of the responses suggest.

The firm probably breached the GDPR by allowing this to happen and the information commissioner could most likely slap their wrists or issue a fine.

The firm in turn could almost certainly take disciplinary action against the person who used their personal mobile phone for this purpose.

However, I am far from sure that the person actually broke the law. There are very few legal restrictions as to what you can photograph / film with your camera. You do not need somebody's permission to photograph them. By extension, why can you not re-photograph somebody's else's photo or film? It may well be a breach of copyright but that is a civil matter and not a crime.

Equally, if the mobile phone footage is "published" (i.e shown to a third party) there may be the possibility of a civil claim but I struggle to see that the mobile phone user has broken the criminal law.