Is it lawful to capture my work chats after being dismissed?

ProofSnap captures what is on your screen in a session you are already signed into. It does not break into systems and it does not use anyone else’s credentials. Capturing material you can lawfully see, for the purpose of a dispute you are a party to, is ordinary evidence gathering. Do not use credentials you were told to stop using, and if in doubt speak to an attorney or your union first.

What counts as a good reason for condonation?

The CCMA looks at the degree of lateness, the explanation for it, your prospects of success, the prejudice to the other party and the importance of the matter. A short delay with a solid explanation and a strong case is the best position. Being unaware of the deadline is generally a poor explanation, so treat the 30 days as absolute.

What if I have already been removed from the group chat?

Capture what you still have. Your own device may still hold the exported thread, an email copy or a forwarded message, and colleagues who are still in the group may be willing to help. Capture those the same way, because a colleague’s screenshot with your dated capture around it is stronger than the loose image on its own.

I am the employer. Should I be doing this too?

Yes, and earlier than employees do. Capture the disciplinary record, the warnings, the policy pages as they stood on the relevant dates and the relevant channels before the account is deprovisioned. A monthly plan from $8.99 (about R149) is the usual choice for HR teams, and the 7-day trial requires a credit card.

Does the 30 days apply to every CCMA dispute?

No. Thirty days is the unfair dismissal period. Unfair labour practice disputes run to 90 days from the act or omission, and discrimination disputes under the Employment Equity Act have their own period. Confirm the period that attaches to your particular referral rather than assuming one rule covers everything.

Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration

Thirty days to refer. Your access went on day one.

The CCMA gives you 30 days from the date of dismissal to refer the dispute, one of the shortest windows anywhere. The evidence that decides it, the team chat, the roster changes, the warning emails, the policy page as it stood, sits on systems your employer controls, and those accounts are usually closed the same afternoon you are.

Capture it before access goes How it works

Works on Chrome and Edge. From $4.99 (about R83) as a one-off, or a 7-day trial that requires a credit card.

An unfair dismissal dispute must be referred to the CCMA within 30 days of the date of dismissal, or of the date the employer made a final decision to dismiss or to uphold the dismissal on appeal. That period comes from section 191 of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995, it is the shortest deadline in this guide series, and it is the first thing that decides whether your case is heard at all. Unfair dismissal is not a niche complaint either: it accounted for 51 per cent of all CCMA referrals in the 2024/25 financial year. A late referral needs condonation, which has to be applied for and is not granted as a matter of course. Referral is usually made on LRA Form 7.11 and proof of service on the other party matters. Cases are lost at arbitration not because there was no evidence but because the evidence was never brought, or was never converted into proof, so the bundle goes in chronological order with every page numbered. If conciliation does not resolve it, arbitration follows and it is a formal hearing: documents are put in, witnesses are called, both sides cross-examine, and the commissioner issues a binding award. Under section 15 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 a data message may not be refused in evidence merely because it is a data message, and its weight is assessed on the reliability of how it was generated, stored and communicated, how its integrity was maintained, and how its originator was identified. ProofSnap captures the chat, the roster, the intranet notice or the post as a package with the full page, the saved source, the URL, the capture time in UTC, a SHA-256 hash of every file and an RSA-4096 signature, which is exactly what section 15(3) asks about. It works the same way for employers defending a claim. From $4.99 (about R83) as a one-off.

By Radim Motycka, Founder and Lead Engineer, ProofSnap · Last updated: 31 July 2026 · Independently verifiable via Trust Verifier

What disappears in the first week

Losing the job and losing the evidence happen the same afternoon

Dismissal and deprovisioning are the same event in most companies. Everything that proves your version lives behind a login that stops working.

Access is revoked immediately

Email, the intranet, the HR portal and the team chat are usually cut on the day the employment ends, often within the hour. Anything you have not captured by then is something you will be asking your former employer to produce for you.

Group chats get cleaned up

The WhatsApp group, the Teams channel or the Slack workspace where the real decision was discussed is the first thing that gets tidied. Messages are deleted for everyone, members are removed, and history disappears with the account.

The policy page changes quietly

Disciplinary codes, rosters and performance policies are edited without notice or version history. The version you were held to may not be the version the CCMA is shown, and without a dated capture there is no way to demonstrate the difference.

The deadlines and how they are applied

These are the fixed points. They decide whether the dispute is heard, which comes before any argument about whether the dismissal was fair.

Thirty days, under section 191 of the LRA

The referral must reach the CCMA within 30 days of the date of dismissal. Where the employer had an internal appeal and confirmed the dismissal, time runs from that final decision. Work to the earlier date if you are unsure.

Late means applying for condonation

A referral outside 30 days is not automatically dead, but it needs condonation. You must explain the delay, the length of it, your prospects of success and the prejudice to the other side. It is a separate application and it is refused often enough to be worth avoiding.

Arbitration is a formal hearing

If conciliation fails, arbitration follows. Documents are put in, witnesses give evidence, both sides cross-examine, and the commissioner issues an award that is final and binding. This is the point where an undated screenshot is tested.

Employers are on the same clock

If you are defending a claim, preserve the record before the employee accounts are deprovisioned and before anyone tidies a channel. A record made at the time of the decision carries far more weight than one assembled after the referral arrives.

Section 15(3) is a checklist, and you can satisfy it in advance

ECTA does not tell a commissioner to accept your screenshot. It tells them to weigh it, and section 15(3) sets out what to weigh: how the data message was generated, stored and communicated, how its integrity was maintained, and how its originator was identified. A phone photograph of a screen answers none of those questions. A capture with a hash over every file, a signature, a recorded URL and a capture time in UTC answers all four before anyone asks.

How do I capture work evidence before my access is cut?

No forensic training required. The proof is in the package, not in your testimony about how careful you were.

Capture while you still have the login

Open the chat, the roster, the policy page or the post in Chrome or Edge and start the capture from the side panel. Do this first, before you write anything or speak to anyone.

The package seals itself

Every file is hashed with SHA-256, the manifest is signed with an RSA-4096 key, and the manifest hash is anchored to Bitcoin. The capture time is recorded in UTC, independent of your device clock.

Refer within 30 days and attach the ZIP

Refer the dispute on LRA Form 7.11 and keep proof of service. The package goes into your bundle as a dated, checkable document rather than an image anyone can dispute.

What is in a CCMA evidence bundle?

Between 11 and 15 files depending on your plan, delivered as one ZIP that anyone can check without installing anything.

Full-page screenshot

The whole page, not just the visible window, stitched and hashed.

Saved page source

The document as rendered at capture time, including the head, meta tags and structured data.

Extracted page text

Searchable plain text, so a quote can be found and cited without retyping.

Technical metadata

URL, page title, HTTP response headers, browser, operating system and the capture time in UTC.

Signed manifest

SHA-256 for every file, signed with an RSA-4096 key whose public key ships in the package.

Blockchain timestamp

The manifest hash anchored to Bitcoin via OpenTimestamps, so the capture time cannot be backdated.

Chain of custody and forensic log

A record of what happened during the capture, in the order it happened.

Evidence report as PDF

A readable summary you can attach to an application, a notice or a report.

Verification instructions

Written steps plus scripts, so the other side can re-check the hashes offline.

Anyone can verify it, including the other side. Drop the ZIP onto the public Trust Verifier and the hashes, the signature and the timestamp are checked in the browser. Nothing is uploaded and nothing depends on ProofSnap still existing.

Three ways to get the evidence

Prices are charged in USD. Approximate rand figures are shown for orientation only, and your card issuer sets the actual rate.

One dispute

$4.99 once

about R83

A SnapPack is a single up-front purchase for a set number of captures. No subscription, no auto-renewal, no trial. Best when you have one problem and you want it documented today.

Get a SnapPack

Ongoing matters

$8.99/month

about R149

For anyone who captures regularly: practitioners, property managers, HR, investigators. The 7-day free trial requires a credit card. Cancel any time during the trial and you are not charged.

Start the 7-day trial

We do it for you

$44.99 per URL

about R747

Send us the link and our team captures the package for you, with nothing to install. Useful when the capture should not come from a party to the dispute.

See the capture service

ProofSnap is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. South Africa has no equivalent of the EU qualified timestamp, so the timestamp here is corroboration rather than a legal presumption. What section 15 of ECTA asks about is reliability, and a hash over every file with a signature and a recorded capture time is what answers it. Optional eIDAS qualified timestamps issued by Disig a.s., a Qualified Trust Service Provider on the EU Trusted List, are available on Enterprise plans for cross-border matters.

Official sources

Every figure and deadline on this page comes from the following primary sources. Check them yourself rather than taking our word for it.

CCMA annual reports the source of the referral statistics quoted above, including the 2024/25 figures.
CCMA: get advice the official guidance on referring a dispute and what happens at conciliation and arbitration.
CCMA: unfair dismissal information sheet the 30 day referral period and the referral process, from the CCMA itself.
Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 the founding statute, including the referral periods and condonation.
Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 section 15, admissibility and evidential weight of data messages.

If the dismissal was accompanied by posts about you, the defamation guide covers a separate claim that runs from the same capture. The standard of proof is the balance of probabilities, and in an unfair dismissal dispute the employer generally carries the burden of showing that the dismissal was fair. That does not help you if the messages proving what actually happened were deleted, which is why the first afternoon matters more than the thirtieth day.

Questions people actually ask

Thirty days, and the first afternoon is the one that matters

Capture what you can still reach today. The referral can wait until tomorrow.

Capture it before access goes ProofSnap in South Africa