Under the right circumstances, the use of hidden cameras to monitor employees suspected of improper conduct can be an effective—and legal—means of catching workplace wrongdoers, legal experts said. But the alleged use by a San Diego-area hospital likely was not under the right circumstances, they agreed.

A recent lawsuit alleges that Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa secretly recorded, between July 2012 and June 2013, 1,800 patients via hidden cameras inside three labor and delivery operating rooms at the women’s health center. The recordings, which in some cases captured patients’ faces, included footage of Caesarean births, hysterectomies, dilatation and curettage following miscarriages, and other procedures, the suit states.