WASHINGTON — On Thursday, U.S. Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, introduced legislation to protect and empower workers against invasive and exploitative surveillance technologies.
Employers are increasingly using these technologies to monitor workers’ activities, on and off duty, and penalize them without oversight, accountability, or transparency. The Stop Spying Bosses Act would safeguard workers’ autonomy and dignity, and empower them by creating much-needed standards, protections, and oversight to counter exploitative technologies that are spreading unchecked.
“As the power imbalance in workplaces continues to grow, employers are increasingly using invasive surveillance technologies that allow them to track their workers like pieces of equipment,” said Casey. “American workers are the backbone of our country, and they deserve to be treated with basic dignity at work. The Stop Spying Bosses Act is a first step to level the playing field for workers by holding their bosses accountable for using invasive technology against them.”
Booker agreed, stating, “In recent years, employers have used technologies to intrude on the privacy of their employees, tracking their activities both on and off duty, and using the invasively gathered information to penalize workers. Workers deserve better, and this legislation seeks to ensure that they are treated with dignity and respect at the workplace by empowering them with the resources they need to fight against employee surveillance.”
Schatz said workers deserve to be treated with respect, not suspicion.
“The growing use of technology to spy on workers on and off the job is disturbing. Our bill protects workers’ safety and privacy by limiting the use of employee trackwing technology, and holds companies accountable for using it to undermine workers’ right to collective action and union organizing,” said Schatz.
The Stop Spying Bosses Act would level the playing field for workers by requiring disclosures in a timely, accessible, and public manner and establishing prohibitions for employers engaging in employee surveillance, including data collection that interferes with union organizing. Workers would be newly empowered in employment decisions made by automated decision-making systems and AI thanks to this new bill. The bill would also create a new Privacy and Technology Division at the Department of Labor to enforce and regulate workplace surveillance including novel and emerging technologies.
In addition to Casey, Booker, and Schatz, the Stop Spying Bosses Act is cosponsored by U.S. Senators John Fetterman, D-Pa., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and supported by the Economic Policy Institute, National Employment Law Project, the Athena Coalition, the Communications Workers of America, the SEIU, and the AFL-CIO.
