We treat texts, emails and private messages like disposable conversation. Investigators, lawyers, employers—and sometimes criminals—may see something very different: a record of what we said, promised, threatened or admitted.
You do not necessarily need to be secretly recorded anymore.
You are recording yourself.
Every angry text message. Every late-night WhatsApp exchange. Every email written in frustration. Every workplace joke on Teams. Every Instagram DM. Every voice message. Every photograph sent privately. Every message is followed by: “Delete this after you read it.”
We have created a remarkable contradiction.
Never before have ordinary people had such sophisticated communication technology in their hands. Yet, we have become remarkably casual about documenting our own behaviour.
We record arguments. Relationships. Negotiations. Complaints. Promises. Insults. Threats. Affairs. Workplace conflicts. Financial arrangements. Gossip. Sometimes, we even document conduct that may later become relevant to an investigation.
Then we press SEND.
And psychologically, we often treat the message as though it disappeared into the air.
It did not.
The Digital Disinhibition Problem
There is academic reasoning behind this behaviour.
Psychologist John Suler described the “online disinhibition effect” in 2004: people may disclose more or behave more intensely online than they would face-to-face. Among the factors he identified were invisibility, asynchronicity and minimisation of authority.
More than two decades later, the principle is arguably even more relevant because digital communication is no longer something we do occasionally at a computer.
It follows us everywhere.
The smartphone creates psychological distance.
You do not see the recipient’s facial expression while typing.
You do not experience the uncomfortable silence after an accusation.
You can send something from your bedroom at midnight that you would never say across a boardroom table at 9am.
That distance can create recklessness.
During years of investigative work, including corporate investigations and human intelligence, I have repeatedly learned one basic lesson about people:
When people feel secure, they tend to relax their defences.
The digital world can manufacture precisely that feeling.
But there is a fundamental difference between an unguarded conversation and an unguarded message.
One leaves a memory.
The other may leave a record.
From Private Message to Exhibit
Australian cases demonstrate how ordinary communications can acquire formal significance.
Fair Work Commission decisions have considered text messages and WhatsApp communications. In a 2017 Full Bench matter, a WhatsApp transcript was treated as significant corroborative evidence in resolving disputed events.
In a 2024 unfair-dismissal matter involving the Commonwealth Bank, the Commission considered more than 50 messages sent by an employee to his manager, including messages sent early in the morning and late at night.
The employee argued that the messages had been misinterpreted. The Commission examined their content, frequency, timing and context in determining that there was a valid reason for dismissal.
The lesson is not that every stupid message becomes courtroom evidence.
It is that the status of a message can change without the words changing at all.
Today it is banter.
Tomorrow it is evidence in an HR investigation.
Today it is an argument between partners.
Tomorrow, it forms part of a legal dispute.
Today it is an angry message to a manager.
Tomorrow somebody may be reading it aloud in proceedings.
And that possibility extends far beyond corporate Australia.
Your Personal Life Creates Records Too
Imagine a relationship deteriorating.
Two people argue through WhatsApp for months. Accusations are made. Apologies follow. Money is discussed. Threats are exchanged. Messages are deleted. Screenshots are taken.
Each person believes they are having a private argument.
They may simultaneously be creating a chronology.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner advises people experiencing serious online abuse to preserve relevant evidence before blocking or deleting material. Relevant information can include messages, usernames, URLs, dates and times. Screenshots can help preserve what occurred.
For technology-facilitated domestic, family or sexual violence, context and repeated behaviour can also matter because an isolated message may appear harmless when separated from a wider pattern.
eSafety recommends preserving complete conversations where appropriate rather than relying only on cropped comments.
This recommendation is crucial as it reveals the other side of the story.
A Screenshot Is Not the Truth
Digital evidence can be powerful.
It can also be dangerously seductive.
People see a screenshot and think:
Case closed.
An investigator should think differently.
What happened immediately before the screenshot?
What happened afterwards?
Who controlled the device?
Is the conversation complete?
Are the dates accurate?
Was anything deleted?
Can authorship be established?
Has the image been cropped?
Does another device contain a different or more complete record?
What was the relationship between the participants?
What does the surrounding evidence show?
This distinction matters because evidence and truth are not synonyms.
Even an authentic message can be misunderstood.
Sarcasm looks different without tone of voice. An inside joke can look appalling to an outsider. Anger can produce language that does not accurately describe what occurred. A cropped conversation can remove the very sentence that changes its meaning.
This is why professional investigations should examine provenance, chronology, corroboration and context—not simply the most dramatic screenshot.
The NSW Evidence Act also contains provisions concerning representations within documents recording electronic communications, including matters relating to sender identity, time and destination.
The legal treatment of a communication depends on the circumstances, jurisdiction and applicable rules.
“It was only a text message” is not a useful assumption.
The Most Dangerous Message May Be Sent While Angry
Consider a hypothetical business dispute.
A director believes a former partner has betrayed him.
At 11:43pm he sends:
“We both know what we did. Delete everything and stop contacting me.”
Perhaps there is an innocent explanation.
Perhaps there is not.
But imagine encountering that sentence six months later as an investigator.
Immediately, questions multiply.
What did “we did” mean?
What was supposed to be deleted?
Why?
What happened before the message?
What happened afterwards?
The sender may eventually spend hours explaining a sentence that took ten seconds to write.
This is the asymmetry of digital recklessness:
Seconds to create. Months or years to explain.
Deleting Is Not a Time Machine
There is also a dangerous popular belief that deleting a message means destroying it.
Sometimes deletion does remove accessible material.
Sometimes records may remain elsewhere: on another participant’s device, in screenshots, exports, backups, organisational systems or other sources.
The Australian eSafety Commissioner warns that evidence may need to be collected before material disappears and recommends preserving original evidence and contextual information.
So the sensible principle is not that “everything online exists forever.”
That statement is too absolute.
The better principle is:
Once you send something, you may lose control over its future existence.
The recipient can save it.
Forward it.
Screenshot it.
Report it.
Produce it during an investigation.
Or show it to somebody you never imagined would see it.
And this is where the idea of a “private message” becomes dangerous.
Private does not necessarily mean protected.
Private does not necessarily mean confidential.
And private certainly does not mean that the recipient shares your understanding of what should happen to that message tomorrow.
The Court of Public Opinion
There is another courtroom with virtually no rules of evidence.
Social media.
A private message can become a public screenshot within seconds.
And here, context often loses.
The screenshot that travels fastest is rarely the 200-message conversation demonstrating nuance.
It is the single sentence capable of provoking outrage.
That creates two simultaneous responsibilities.
For the sender: communicate as though control may eventually be lost.
For the audience: never assume a screenshot tells the entire story.
Both principles matter.
Otherwise, we risk replacing digital recklessness with digital vigilantism.
Think Like an Investigator Before You Press Send
I have spent a significant part of my professional life investigating what people did, why they did it and whether the available evidence supports what they later claim happened.
Technology changes.
Human behaviour does not change nearly as quickly.
Anger still overrides judgement.
Ego still encourages confrontation.
Fear still causes people to conceal.
Greed still creates shortcuts.
And the feeling of privacy still encourages disclosure.
The difference is that today we carry devices capable of documenting those moments instantly.
That is why my rule is simple.
Before sending a message—whether you are a CEO, employee, business owner, husband, wife, partner, friend or simply somebody frustrated with another human being—ask yourself:
Would I be comfortable explaining these exact words if somebody else read them tomorrow?
Not because every message will end up before a judge.
Most never will.
Not because every screenshot proves wrongdoing.
It does not.
This is not to suggest that we should become frightened of communicating openly.
We should not.
The point is simpler.
The moment you press SEND, the words are no longer entirely yours.
They now exist in somebody else’s world.
And one day, the message you barely remember writing may become the message that everybody wants you to explain.
Think before you type.
Read before you send.
And never confuse PRIVATE with CONSEQUENCE-FREE.
References:
- Suler, J. (2004). The Online Disinhibition Effect. CyberPsychology & Behaviour, 7(3), 321–326.
- Australian eSafety Commissioner. How to Collect Evidence.
- Australian eSafety Commissioner. Collecting Evidence Safely – Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence.
- Fair Work Commission. [2017] FWCFB 990.
- Fair Work Commission. Unfair Dismissal Decisions and Digital Communications, 2024.
- NSW Government. Evidence Act 1995 (NSW).