{"id":399157,"date":"2026-04-15T05:01:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T05:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/399157\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T05:01:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T05:01:16","slug":"it-worker-secretly-recorded-bosses-after-voicing-concerns-about-suppliers-israeli-links-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/399157\/","title":{"rendered":"IT worker secretly recorded bosses after voicing concerns about supplier\u2019s Israeli links \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A cybersecurity<\/a> worker told his employers he had a \u201cmoral and professional obligation\u201d to set out his concerns about an \u201cIsraeli<\/a> company with an Israeli CEO\u201d having access to the firm\u2019s servers in a covertly recorded meeting with executives, a tribunal has heard. <\/p>\n

Unknown to his bosses, the worker, Cian \u00d3 Laoi, recorded a meeting where he given a formal reprimand over remarks made about the Israeli tech sector and the \u201cgenocide of the Palestinians\u201d.<\/p>\n

He was told he was \u201cwasting a lot of executive time\u201d and engaging in \u201ctinfoil hat stuff\u201d, the Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC) has heard. <\/p>\n

\u00d3 Laoi is pursuing claims of whistleblower penalisation and constructive dismissal against his former employer, BCC Risk Advisory Ltd, trading as Edgescan, where he worked as a software engineer on its DevOps team. <\/p>\n

The company disputes the claims. <\/p>\n

The complainant told the WRC he became concerned about the level of access that had been granted to a third-party vendor called DoIT, which was reselling a cloud hosting package. <\/p>\n

DoIT\u2019s access was revoked and changes were made in July 2024 after \u00d3 Laoi wrote to Edgescan\u2019s chief executive. <\/p>\n

Quoting from the email from \u00d3 Laoi to Edgescan chief executive Eoin Keary on July 2nd, 2024, Mary-Paula Guinness, for the respondent, said: \u201c\u2018I also need to shout that they [DoIT] are an Israeli company\u2019 \u2013 in bold \u2013 \u2018headquartered in the US and their CEO and two founders are Israeli\u2019 \u2013 in bold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI cry to my TV watching them genocide the Palestinians,\u201d Guinness continued. <\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think this narrative \u2013 the Israelis and genocide \u2013 was appropriate?\u201d she asked. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an ethical comment in a private email. It wasn\u2019t directed at any individual,\u201d \u00d3 Laoi said. <\/p>\n

\u00d3 Laoi\u2019s evidence was that he was called in by Rahim Jina, Edgescan\u2019s chief operating officer, in July 2024 and told his \u201crhetoric\u201d about Israel was \u201cunacceptable\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said he became concerned he would be \u201cjumped\u201d with disciplinary action and decided to start recording calls with senior management \u201cto protect myself\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Computer engineer claims he was penalised for flagging company\u2019s Israel linksOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He was reprimanded formally for \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d comments in relation to Israel at a meeting on September 18th, 2024, which he recorded, the WRC heard. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs a matter of professionalism, did you tell them you were recording?\u201d Guinness asked. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I recorded it to have a record of the meeting where no minutes were being provided,\u201d the complainant said. <\/p>\n

Told he was being formally reprimanded, \u00d3 Laoi asked: \u201cWill I be offered an opportunity to defend myself?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can appeal if you want,\u201d Jina said.<\/p>\n

Jina also referred to comments allegedly made during meetings but said the firm would \u201cpin\u201d the warning to two comments in particular emails, the transcript noted. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf I mentioned Israel in any way, it would have been in relation to the supply-chain risk of Unit 8200,\u201d \u00d3 Laoi said of the meetings, referring to an Israeli military intelligence agency. <\/p>\n

Asked by Guinness whether he had \u201cany information\u201d to suggest any staff of DoIT \u201chas a direct connection to Unit 8200\u201d, \u00d3 Laoi said: \u201cNo, it\u2019s a risk.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said it was \u201cwell known in the tech sector\u201d there was a \u201crevolving-door relationship\u201d between the Israeli tech industry and military intelligence. <\/p>\n

During the meeting, \u00d3 Laoi said: \u201cI have a right to freedom of expression. I have a right to a conscience,\u201d the tribunal heard. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is silly stuff here,\u201d Jina was quoted as saying in reply, and went on to say he had \u201ca right to call out inappropriate behaviour\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou claim it was inappropriate \u2013 I say it was a moral and professional obligation,\u201d \u00d3 Laoi replied. <\/p>\n

The case is continuing before adjudicator Penelope McGrath. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A cybersecurity worker told his employers he had a \u201cmoral and professional obligation\u201d to set out his concerns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,3312,61,60,3410,4268,6465],"class_list":{"0":"post-399157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cybersecurity","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-palestine","14":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}