Is Your Employer Watching You?: Invasive Employee Surveillance in the Modern Era
Amid a rise of technological advancement and work-from-home employment, employee surveillance has become remarkably intrusive. Though employee monitoring is nothing new, tools today allow employers to gather startling amounts of data on employees—far beyond mere productivity tracking—including keystroke logging, email tracking, video surveillance through webcams, and GPS monitoring. Employers utilize this data to gain insights into employee productivity and where to allocate company resources. But that is no excuse: These tools are invasive, drive employee anxiety, and intrude on privacy rights.
This Note explores current gaps in the legal landscape for employee privacy rights and how intrusive surveillance fits within those rights. It addresses federal and state privacy laws, recent administrative guidance, and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. It also discusses recent employee privacy lawsuits with companies like Amazon and Apple. Ultimately, this Note proposes expanding the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to protect employees from unreasonable monitoring and provide them an avenue for recovery.
Author: Madigan Wolford
Volume 26, Issue 4