{"id":147758,"date":"2026-08-21T22:41:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T22:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/147758\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T22:41:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T22:41:16","slug":"afl-resignation-staff-member-quits-after-being-told-she-could-not-opt-out-of-using-microsoft-copilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/147758\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL resignation: Staff member quits after being told she could not opt out of using Microsoft Copilot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"David<\/p>\n

August 22, 2026 \u2014 5:00am<\/p>\n

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Gabrielle Boyle resigned from the AFL three days before Microsoft\u2019s AI assistant was switched on throughout the organisation.<\/p>\n

She had asked whether she could opt out. The AFL told her, in writing, that she could not.<\/p>\n

\"GabrielleGabrielle Boyle describes herself as an AI refuser. She quit her dream job at the AFL.Chelsea Taylor<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do not have a right to request that your work not be accessed by our AI systems,\u201d the code\u2019s HR executive Ciara Gilchrist wrote to her on June 23, according to documents seen by this masthead.<\/p>\n

Boyle sent her resignation on June 26. Microsoft\u2019s Copilot went live on June 29.<\/p>\n

From her Coffs Harbour base, Boyle was the AFL\u2019s participation manager for northern NSW, responsible for getting five- to 12-year-olds to play football in the Hunter region, the North Coast and the central and north-west. She describes herself as an AI refuser who will not use ChatGPT, Copilot or any other large language model.<\/p>\n

Her objections run from the immediate to the apocalyptic: the water and power consumed by data centres, what the technology is doing to people\u2019s capacity to think, and research suggesting advanced AI could pose a risk of human extinction.<\/p>\n

Boyle is an outlier, and knows it. She no longer owns a smartphone, has deleted her social media accounts and now lives in a converted Toyota 4WD.<\/p>\n

The AFL\u2019s refusal to allow Boyle a choice is not unlawful. Employers in Australia can install software on the equipment they own, are exempt from privacy law when handling employee records, and generally own whatever their staff produce. Most workers accept AI at work, or accept that they have no realistic way to avoid it.<\/p>\n

Boyle\u2019s case, illustrating how far someone has to go if they really don\u2019t want to use the technology, is also early test of a new feature of many Australian workplaces.<\/p>\n

As employers embed AI into the systems their staff use daily, often at short notice and with no option to decline, the law has not caught up. In a recent survey of Australian Services Union members, who often work in clerical roles, more than half were not aware their employer had an AI policy at all.<\/p>\n

Boyle\u2019s departure caps a four-month exchange with the AFL, documented in emails seen by this masthead, that began with an internal staff survey.<\/p>\n

\"AboutAbout 35 per cent of AFL staff said in a survey last year that they were not comfortable with AI being adopted in the workplace.Getty<\/p>\n

About 35 per cent of AFL staff said in a survey last year that they were not comfortable with AI being adopted in the workplace.<\/p>\n

Boyle raised her concerns at an executive roadshow when the leadership team, including chief executive Andrew Dillon, visited Coffs Harbour on March 5. She asked what the AFL\u2019s position on AI was and whether a policy would arrive to protect data and jobs.<\/p>\n

Bec Haagsma, the AFL\u2019s executive general manager customer, commercial and technology, fielded the question and spoke positively about AI\u2019s potential to improve both the elite game and the AFL\u2019s administration. Boyle says about eight colleagues thanked her for speaking up when she got back to the office.<\/p>\n

\"RebeccaRebecca Haagsma, the AFL\u2019s executive general manager customer, commercial and technology.AFR<\/p>\n

She followed up in writing to Haagsma, setting out research on AI\u2019s labour market and extinction risks and asking the league to pause its adoption.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, on March 16, Boyle emailed to report that a trainee planned to tidy up a list of registered AFL program participants by putting it through an AI tool. The list held children\u2019s personal details, drawn from PlayHQ, the platform community clubs use to register players. No AI policy existed at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cSharing detailed personal information of our registered participants to third-party AI companies seems like it would be in breach of their privacy,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

The AFL\u2019s AI policy was released that day. It bars uploading personal or confidential information into unapproved tools, sets rules for AI meeting transcription and lists endorsed products including ChatGPT, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Salesforce Agentforce, Cursor and Claude Code. Its stated aspiration is to \u201cembrace AI to elevate our people\u2019s performance and impact\u201d.<\/p>\n

A footnote records that the policy was written with the assistance of generative AI.<\/p>\n

Haagsma replied to Boyle\u2019s broader concerns the following day, saying the AFL had to do more to share its plans transparently. She invited Boyle to join an AI community of interest that was about to launch.<\/p>\n

Boyle says that group never eventuated.<\/p>\n

The organisation\u2019s first national AI training session came on April 21 with more than 300 staff joining a call titled Making Sense of AI, run by an external provider. Boyle says the facilitator told staff to give their AI assistants human names, rejecting suggestions like \u201cChatty\u201d as insufficiently human, and to have the AI generate pictures of them.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Chouwa<\/a><\/p>\n

By mid-June, Boyle had told her managers she would not have Copilot on her laptop, would not put her work through AI systems and would not direct her team to use it. She wrote that the change was causing her significant distress and that she felt unsafe at work.<\/p>\n

The AFL\u2019s response was that compliance with the policy was expected of everyone and that failure to comply \u201cmay result in performance management\u201d. It declined her request for a mutual separation and disputed her recollection that she had been told to resign.<\/p>\n

The AFL also gave her a technical answer. Copilot, its technology team explained, can only see files and emails Boyle could already open herself. It doesn\u2019t give anyone new access to anything, the AFL\u2019s information stays on the AFL\u2019s own systems, and none of it is used to train Microsoft\u2019s models.<\/p>\n

\u201cAFL\u2019s position is that it is not meaningfully distinct from any other form of email or work surveillance that already occurs,\u201d HR executive Gilchrist wrote.<\/p>\n

An AFL spokesman said the league recognised the opportunities AI presented and supported its responsible use \u201cto enhance the way we work\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also respect that some may hold different views on the adoption of new technology and that\u2019s OK too,\u201d the spokesman told this masthead.<\/p>\n

\"ACTUACTU assistant secretary Joseph Mitchell.Louie Douvis<\/p>\n

Staff were given less than two weeks\u2019 notice of the rollout. ACTU assistant secretary Joseph Mitchell said employers do not get to make that call alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmployers have an obligation under the Fair Work Act to consult with workers when they decide to adopt AI, where it is likely to change employees\u2019 jobs or how they do them,\u201d he told this masthead. \u201cFailure to engage in such meaningful consultation requirements breaches an employer\u2019s responsibilities under the Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

That obligation is triggered, however, only where a change is likely to have significant effects on staff, such as job losses or changed hours. And where the duty applies, an employer must tell affected staff about the decision in writing and genuinely consider their views before acting. It does not give anyone a veto.<\/p>\n

\u2018Employers have an obligation under the Fair Work Act to consult with workers when they decide to adopt AI, where it is likely to change employees\u2019 jobs or how they do them.\u2019<\/p>\n

ACTU assistant secretary Joseph Mitchell<\/p>\n

Australian Services Union national secretary Emeline Gaske said the AFL\u2019s technical defence misses what has actually changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cTechnology is changing so rapidly that the question of whether a specific tool is technically confined to a worker\u2019s existing permissions is beside the point,\u201d she told this masthead. \u201cThese tools are fundamentally changing how workers\u2019 day-to-day output is being captured, reviewed and judged.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaske said cases such as Boyle\u2019s would keep landing in a grey zone until the law changed, with employers arguing what they were doing was lawful even where it infringed workers\u2019 privacy. The union wants enforceable safeguards and genuine worker consultation before AI is deployed.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"<p>\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Boyle approached her union, the Fair Work Commission and LawAccess NSW. All three told her they could not help.<\/p>\n

Tom Sulston, head of policy at Digital Rights Watch, said her position was close to legally hopeless. Employers have an exemption under privacy law covering employee records, and employment contracts typically give the employer ownership of what a worker produces.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t put the onus on individuals to opt out,\u201d Sulston said. \u201cIndividual opt-outs won\u2019t stop situations where employees are training the AI systems that will eventually replace them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ProfessorProfessor Nicholas Davis, from the University of Technology Sydney, says investment in AI isn\u2019t closing the governance gap.Oscar Colman<\/p>\n

Four months before the rollout, NSW legislated in this area. The Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Act, passed in February, places a duty on employers to ensure digital systems do not create health and safety risks, and allows union representatives to inspect them. Whether it applies to a general-purpose assistant like Copilot remains untested.<\/p>\n

Nicholas Davis, co-director of the University of Technology Sydney\u2019s Human Technology Institute, said Boyle reacted less to the software than to the way it arrived.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not just a tech refusal story. This is a conduct issue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Australians rank among the least trusting of AI in the world, according to research by KPMG and the University of Melbourne. Davis said the distrust is not of whether the systems work, but of how employers are using them.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou lose great people,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to lose staff because you are not managing the change process well, completely aside from your legal requirements to consult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Data<\/a><\/p>\n

He was pessimistic about Boyle\u2019s chances of avoiding AI elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaying I don\u2019t want to work anywhere where there\u2019s AI is very similar to saying I don\u2019t want to work anywhere where a Google product is used,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s possible, but it is very, very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boyle is now living in a 1986 Toyota Troop Carrier with her cat, carrying a flip phone and handing cards to strangers on their screens that read: \u201cI\u2019m open to talk, want to have a conversation?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we do on an individual level matters,\u201d Boyle said. \u201cOur input adds to their data. Our time adds to their power. That\u2019s why I\u2019m no longer online and refuse AI wherever I can. It\u2019s my personal way of protesting against a future I don\u2019t want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get news and reviews on technology, gadgets and gaming in our Technology newsletter. Sign up to receive it every Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"DavidDavid Swan<\/a> is the technology editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously technology editor for The Australian newspaper.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"August 22, 2026 \u2014 5:00am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[420,7853,416,320,7852],"class_list":["post-147758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-microsoft","tag-azure","tag-azure-copilot","tag-copilot","tag-microsoft","tag-microsoft-copilot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}