The rise in remote work has brought with it a rise in employee monitoring. Between 2019 and 2021, the percentage of employees working primarily from home tripled. As “productivity paranoia” crept in, employers steadily adopted employee surveillance technologies. This has raised questions about the legal and ethical implications of enhanced monitoring, in some cases prompting proposed legislation or the expanded use of laws already on the books.
Employee monitoring is nothing new. Employers have long used supervisors and timeclock programs, among other systems, to monitor employee activity. What is new, however, is the proliferation of sophisticated monitoring technologies—as well as the expanding number and variety of companies that are employing them.
While surveillance was once largely confined to lower-wage industries, white-collar employers are increasingly using surveillance technologies to track their employees’ activity and productivity. Since the COVID-19 pandemic started in March 2020, one in three medium-to-large companies has adopted some form of employee monitoring, with the total fraction of employers using surveillance technologies closer to two in three. Workers who are now subject to monitoring technologies include doctors, lawyers, academics, and even hospice chaplains. Employee monitoring technologies can track a range of information, including:
Internet use (e.g., which websites and apps an employee has visited and for how long);
How long a computer...
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