Electronic Monitoring
There is growing legislative momentum to regulate employers’ use of electronic monitoring in the workplace.
Two 2025 bills in California (see here and here) supported by unions combine to establish a broad framework for regulating employers’ use of electronic monitoring on and off the job, including notice requirements, prohibitions, and responsible use guardrails. A 2025 bill in Maine contains some of these prohibitions, and bills in Massachusetts, Vermont, and Washington combine similar electronic monitoring standards with algorithmic management provisions (see the section “Algorithmic Management” below). All of these bills contain many concepts from California’s 2022 Workplace Technology Accountability Act and New York State’s 2023 Bossware and Oppressive Technologies Act, as well as the federal 2024 Stop Spying Bosses Act. While none of these bills have been enacted into law so far, we consider this type of comprehensive approach to be most protective of workers.
A more limited model is to only require employers to give advance notice to employees of electronic monitoring, as in this 2021 New York State law, this 2024 California bill, and an older generation of laws on the books in a number of states (see Connecticut, New York, and Delaware). A 2025 California bill takes a different approach by requiring public and private sector employers to disclose all electronic surveillance tools in use to the state and the public.
Another approach regulates electronic monitoring through what are known as “just cause” bills, introduced in Illinois and New York City. These bills prohibit the unjust discharge of workers, establish a framework for justified discipline and firing, and limit employers’ reliance on data from electronic monitoring in making those decisions.
Finally, a series of sectoral bills would establish notice requirements when businesses conduct electronic monitoring in specific worksites, like nursing homes, correctional facilities, and residential homes. But the focus is often on protecting patients rather than workers, potentially opening the door to employers misusing monitoring data against workers.
Key concepts appearing in one or more policies:
- Employers must give detailed prior notice of any electronic monitoring (particularly if the collected data will be used to make an employment-related decision).
- Employers are only allowed to use electronic monitoring for a limited set of purposes, collecting the least amount of data, affecting the smallest number of workers, and only as often as is strictly necessary.
- Employers are prohibited from using electronic monitoring that results in a violation of labor and employment laws; that records workers off-duty or in sensitive areas; that uses high-risk technologies, such as facial recognition; or that identifies workers exercising their rights under employment and labor law.
- Employers are prohibited from relying primarily or exclusively on data from electronic monitoring when making decisions about hiring, firing, discipline, or promotion. Instead, the employer must independently corroborate the data and provide the worker with full documentation, including the actual data used.
- Prior to use, employers must conduct impact assessments of electronic monitoring systems, testing for bias and other harms to workers.
- Employers who electronically monitor workers to assess their performance (through productivity or quota systems) are required to disclose performance standards to workers and apply these standards consistently across workers.
- Workers have the right to access and correct their data collected through electronic monitoring systems, and appeal any decisions made by an employer using this data. Employers must adjust any employment-related decisions that were based on inaccurate data.
- Workers must have a private right of action and be protected from retaliation for exercising their rights.

