Business & Finance
Workplace surveillance expands as experts advise employees on privacy risks
Digital tracking tools adopted during the pandemic increasingly monitor worker performance, prompting privacy warnings and calls for legal clarity.
The short version
- Employers are increasingly using digital monitoring and artificial intelligence tools to track employee productivity, location, and communications.
- Workers across multiple sectors report heightened scrutiny from data collection, with academic research showing some workplace tools share data with third parties.
- State regulations vary, with some states requiring notification while most leave employees uncertain about active tracking features.
- Privacy experts recommend reviewing state laws, inquiring with IT departments about tracking settings, and avoiding personal tasks on work-issued devices.
Key facts
- Digital monitoring tools adopted widely during the pandemic continue to track employee whereabouts, communications, task completion rates, and device cameras.[Associated Press]
- An academic study by Vanderbilt University, Northeastern University, and UC Berkeley found that several workplace monitoring tools shared employee data with outside brokers and tech firms without clear disclosure.[Associated Press]
- States including New York, Connecticut, Delaware, and Maine mandate that employers notify staff if they are being monitored.[Associated Press]
- Maine law prohibits visual monitoring inside employees' personal vehicles or homes unless required for specific job duties.[Associated Press]
- Digital privacy experts advise workers to separate personal tasks from work hardware and check with internal IT teams regarding active tracking features built into standard office software.[Associated Press]
What remains uncertain
- The exact scope of legal exceptions for remote visual monitoring in states like Maine remains subject to future labor department interpretations.[Associated Press]
- In states lacking notification laws, the specific tracking features currently enabled on employee software are often undisclosed or unknown to workers.[Associated Press]