Domestic workers put employers’ home lives on TikTok

A growing number of Johannesburg and Cape Town homeowners say they’ve discovered their private lives playing out on TikTok without their knowledge. Some videos have apparently attracted tens of thousands of views. They show household routines, pets, possessions, family events, and children. 

Now, a digital communications lawyer has warned that such filming and publication might violate privacy laws. 

The issue came to light after a Johannesburg woman, who asked to be identified as Leah, discovered her domestic worker’s TikTok account by chance. 

Leah had employed the woman for about seven years and supported her earning other income. “I’ve always encouraged anyone working for me to have some kind of side hustle,” she told the SA Jewish Report. 

The worker had enrolled in an online marketing course and was selling herbal tea. Leah said she understood that participants were required to create social-media content and didn’t initially object. But that changed when TikTok suggested one of the worker’s videos to her. The video featured Leah’s English bulldog and had almost 40 000 views. She subsequently found videos filmed throughout her home. 

One showed dishes following a Shabbat dinner. Leah said the worker had eaten the meal with the family and had declined an offer of help to clean the dishes after the meal. The following morning, she had filmed the dishes and presented them as part of her work burden. 

Other videos allegedly showed cleaning, laundry, pets, and other parts of the household. Leah said the worker discussed her working hours and made derogatory comments about her. 

Leah works American hours, roughly 22:00 to 07:00 South African time, and then sleeps until midday. She says the domestic worker made videos complaining about needing to work quietly as Leah was lazy and slept half the day away. 

The discovery raised concerns about what strangers might learn about the family’s home and routines. “She filmed in every room in my house,” Leah said. She was relieved that the house’s exterior and location weren’t shown. 

Her discovery also prompted her to investigate the marketing course. According to Leah, the domestic worker told her that participants were taught to make videos showing how difficult their working conditions were. The purpose, she said, was to encourage other domestic workers to join the programme. 

Leah then searched TikTok for the herbal tea being sold and found other domestic workers making similar content. She subsequently posted anonymously about her experience on the Joburg Jewish Mommies and Cape Town Jewish Mommies Facebook groups. 

She said two women had contacted her privately with similar stories. Both allegedly involved domestic workers taking the same course, selling herbal tea, and filming inside employers’ homes. 

Two further homeowners interviewed by the SA Jewish Report described similar experiences. Darren*, in Cape Town, said a family member had discovered his live-in domestic worker’s TikTok account, where videos showed his home, child, and pets. “I was scrolling through TikTok and I saw my lounge and my child.” Darren said the account had attracted tens of thousands of views and hundreds of comments. 

He alleged that some scenes had been staged to make the household appear worse than it was. “When I confronted her, she admitted her online sales coach had told her that sympathy sells,” he said. The worker told him that exaggerated duties and staged scenes were intended to increase engagement. 

He believed the social-media activity formed part of an online sales strategy for wellness products, in particular, a product called Royal Blue Tea. It claims to promote gut health, suppress appetite, and stimulate weight loss; although these claims lack scientific evidence. One R400 sachet makes about five litres of tea. 

Another Johannesburg homeowner, Sharon*, said her domestic worker had been employed for more than five years when she discovered her TikTok account featuring footage from family gatherings and Friday-night dinners. 

One video showed dishes left after a large family meal. Sharon said the context presented online did not reflect the circumstances behind the work. “She took a video of a pile of post-holiday catering dishes and posted it with a sad song,” she said. The worker had, in fact, been paid overtime and given food to take home, she said. 

The accounts have prompted questions about whether domestic workers may legally film and publish material from their employers’ homes. Justine Limpitlaw, an electronic communications law specialist, said the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) could apply. 

Limpitlaw said information about a person’s home, habits, family life, and identifiable possessions can constitute personal information. She said POPIA contains an exemption for purely personal or household activity. 

However, that exemption does not extend to wider dissemination for commercial purposes. “If the person is doing this for commercial purposes, that is a commercial activity,” Limpitlaw said. Creating TikTok content intended to attract views or generate income would therefore fall outside the purely personal household exemption. 

“Taking these videos without her employer’s consent and putting them on social media is absolutely a violation of POPIA.” 

Limpitlaw cautioned that employment-law consequences require separate consideration. She is not an employment lawyer. However, she said employers could address the issue directly in employment contracts. Such agreements could prohibit photography or filming inside the property without express permission. They could also prohibit posting material from the household on social media without permission. 

Homeowners who discover such content can approach the relevant social-media platform and request its removal, according to Limpitlaw. She cautioned that removing a post does not necessarily mean the material has disappeared completely. 

The experiences have also raised questions about the online programme connecting the tea sales and videos. The homeowners interviewed believe the programme operates as a form of multilevel marketing. 

The SA Jewish Report hasn’t independently established the identity or structure of the programme, nor verified the claims about what its participants are taught. The domestic workers involved weren’t interviewed for this article, and therefore couldn’t respond to the allegations. 

However, interviewees sent links to some of the videos in question, which show domestic workers complaining about their daily life and encouraging others to join them in changing their financial situations by selling Royal Blue Tea. 

Leah said her experience had changed the way she thinks about privacy in her home. She ended her employment relationship through a mutual separation agreement. She said she doesn’t believe the experience means domestic workers generally cannot be trusted. Instead, it exposed a risk she’d never considered. “I really hadn’t thought about social media as a household privacy and security issue before this happened.” 

For Darren, the discovery has similarly changed the way he views household privacy. “It’s not just about hurt feelings. It’s a severe security vulnerability.” 

Sharon said she had also struggled with the emotional consequences of discovering that private family moments had become online content. “We had built what I thought was a five-year bond of mutual respect,” she said. 

The homeowners’ experiences highlights a question that is increasingly relevant to households where employees have access to private spaces. In an era when almost any moment can become social-media content, employers may need to make their expectations about filming and posting explicit. 

For Limpitlaw, that starts with understanding the legal boundaries. “People have no idea what they can and can’t do,” she said. 

*Names have been changed at the interviewees’ request.