Workplace surveillance tools.

Plain English Breakdown

The bill's exact penalties and enforcement mechanisms remain somewhat unclear from the provided summary.

Rules for Workplace Surveillance

This law sets rules about how employers can use technology to watch workers and collect data.

What This Bill Does

• It stops employers from using tools that watch workers in ways that stop them from following laws or doing protected activities like joining unions.
• It does not allow employers to use facial recognition technology unless it is only for unlocking devices or secure areas.
• It prevents employers from using data collected by surveillance tools to make decisions about firing, disciplining, or deactivating workers.
• It stops employers from using workplace tools to guess personal information like religious beliefs or disability status.
• It lets the Labor Commissioner enforce these rules and allows workers to sue if their rights are violated.

Who It Names or Affects

• Employers who use surveillance technology in workplaces.
• Workers whose data might be collected by employers.
• The Labor Commissioner, who enforces labor laws.

Terms To Know

Workplace Surveillance Tools

Technology used by employers to watch and collect information about workers.

Facial Recognition Technology

A type of technology that uses facial features to identify or verify a person's identity.

Limits and Unknowns

• The law does not apply if using surveillance tools is required by federal laws for national security, military, space, or defense purposes.
• It is unclear how the penalties will be enforced in practice.
• The bill has passed both chambers but its final status and any executive action are unknown.

Official Summary Text

AB 1883, as amended, Bryan.
Workplace surveillance tools.
Existing law establishes the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement within the Department of Industrial Relations. Existing law authorizes the division, which is headed by the Labor Commissioner, to enforce the Labor Code and all labor laws of the state, the enforcement of which is not specifically vested in any other officer, board, or commission.
This bill would generally regulate the use of workplace surveillance tools and an employer’s use of worker data. The bill would prohibit an employer from using a workplace surveillance tool on workers for various purposes, including preventing compliance with laws or regulations, inferring information about workers engaging in a protected activity, making inferences about an individual’s emotional state or based on their gait, or collecting neural data. The bill would prohibit an employer from
using facial recognition
technology, unless it is used strictly to open a locked device or grant access to locked or secure areas.
technology to make inferences about a worker for firing, deactivation, or disciplinary purposes.
The bill
would
would, with certain exceptions,
also prohibit an employer from using a workplace surveillance tool to infer specified categories of information about a worker, including, among others, their veteran status, ancestral history, religious beliefs, or disability status.
This bill would require the Labor Commissioner to enforce the bill’s provisions,
would authorize an employee to bring a civil action for specified remedies for a violation of the bill’s provisions, and would authorize a public prosecutor to enforce the provisions. The bill would subject an employer who violates the bill’s provisions to a civil penalty of up to $500 for each violation. The bill would define various terms for purposes of its provisions.
This bill would exempt from its provisions the use of a workplace artificial intelligence tool or a workplace surveillance tool to the extent that its use is required by, or reasonably necessary to comply with, a federal statute, federal regulation, or binding federal contract relating to the development of aircraft for use in the national airspace or the development of products or services for national security, military, space, or defense purposes.
The bill would include findings that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF