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How to Document Workplace Harassment
Workplace harassment often comes down to one person's word against another's, and HR, a regulator, or a court will usually ask the same first question: what evidence do you have of when this happened? Here's a practical rundown of what to record and how.
Why evidence matters so much
Harassment tends to happen behind closed doors or in one-on-one exchanges, often with no witnesses. Whether you're raising it with HR, a labor board, an employment lawyer, or eventually a court, the first thing anyone asks is some version of "what do you have that shows when and what happened?" Memory alone fades and gets picked apart — a written, dated record is what actually holds up.
What to record
- Screenshots of chats and emails — with the timestamp visible, and saved as raw, unedited files.
- Audio recordings of meetings, where you're able to. Whether recording is appropriate depends on your workplace's policies and your jurisdiction's consent laws (some places require all parties' consent) — use your judgment.
- A contemporaneous log — date, place, what was said, and who was present, written down as soon after the incident as you can manage.
- Medical records, if the harassment has affected your health.
- Your employer's own harassment/conduct policy — useful for showing what your employer was obligated to do.
Things to watch out for
- Capture it as soon as you can. Chat messages get deleted, and apps purge old data on their own schedule. Screenshot or download things the moment you notice them.
- Keep the unedited original. Save a copy before you crop or annotate anything, so nobody can later claim it was doctored.
- Be mindful of uninvolved people's privacy. Don't share evidence more widely than you actually need to.
Why a timestamp helps
A file's own "created" or "modified" date can technically be edited on a computer, so a screenshot or recording can always be second-guessed: did this really exist when you say it did? Proof Stamp anchors the hash of your uploaded file — a fingerprint of its exact contents — into the Bitcoin blockchain. That gives you an independently verifiable record that this exact data existed no later than a specific point in time, checkable by anyone, without having to trust us.
- Upload the file you want as evidence (a screenshot, a recording, whatever it is).
- Its hash is computed automatically and the Bitcoin timestamp process begins.
- Once confirmed, download the original file, the proof data, and a verification report anytime.
Everything you upload stays private — nobody but you can access it. This isn't a tool for posting evidence publicly; it's a quiet way to preserve it in case you need it later.
Don't handle this alone — use the support channels available to you too. Preserving evidence is one important piece of preparation, but it isn't a solution by itself. Depending on where you are, that might mean your employer's HR or ethics line, a labor board or employment tribunal, a union rep, or an employment lawyer — reach out early.