On November 8, 2021 New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed an amendment to the New York Civil Rights Law which requires employers provide notice to employees of electronic monitoring of telephone, email, and internet access and usage. The law, as described briefly below, is scheduled to go into effect on May 7, 2022.
Once effective, the law requires all New York employers (regardless of size) to provide written notice, upon hire, to new employees if the employer does and/or plans to monitor or intercept their telephone or email communications or internet usage. The notice must be in writing (either hard copy or electronic), and it must be acknowledged by new employees. Although employers need not obtain acknowledgements from existing employees, they will be required to post a notice in a “conspicuous place which is readily available for viewing” by existing employees subject to electronic monitoring.
The notice should inform employees that “any and all telephone conversations or transmissions, electronic mail or transmissions, or internet access or usage by an employee by any electronic device or system,” including, but not limited to, “computer, telephone, wire, radio or electromagnetic, photoelectronic or photo-optical systems,” may be subject to monitoring “at any and all times by any lawful means.”
“Conspicuous place” is not defined in the statute. Therefore, employers who have safe harbor policies in their handbooks allowing electronic monitoring may consider posting a...
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