A new law giving Australian workers the "right to disconnect"—to refuse contact from their employers outside their working hours (unless that refusal is unreasonable)—comes into effect this month.
The legislation is a response to growing awareness of the health and safety costs of stress and overwork associated with constant connectivity. A number of other countries, including France and Belgium, have also recognized such a right, or are considering doing so.
But New Zealand is not. Its regulation of working time is comparatively rudimentary compared to more comprehensive regulation in other countries, although the Minimum Wage Act limits working time to 40 hours a week unless the parties agree otherwise.
New Zealand should consider the right to disconnect for workers. But this needs to go beyond limits on when employers can actively contact workers. The government also needs to tackle employers' ability to use newly developed technology to spy on, track and record everything workers do in their time off.
Constant surveillance is now a core feature of algorithmic management software. This gathers data from work-from-home laptops, biometric scanners, workers' smartphones, AI searches of social media, worker-driven vehicles, and even internet-of-things-enabled employee badges.
These devices don't necessarily stop recording when the worker leaves the workplace or stops work for the day.
Workers who are subject to 24/7 surveillance cannot truly disconnect...
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