Worker monitoring

Using AI to track workers' activity, productivity, location, behavior or state through cameras, software or sensors. It clashes with privacy and dignity, so it requires proportionality and prior notice, and in the EU inferring emotions is banned.

Examples

Software that measures productivity on the computer
Cameras with behavior detection on the shop floor
Call center agent call analytics
Driver geolocation tracking

By country

We only list countries where an obligation in force or adopted mentions this use case.

How rules treat it, by jurisdiction

Jurisdiction	Level	Date	Note
European Union	Prohibited practice	February 2, 2025	Inferring workers' emotions is banned (Art. 5(1)(f)); measuring customer anger is outside the ban, measuring the agent's is not.
European Union	High risk	December 2, 2027	Annex III(4): monitoring and evaluating performance and behavior.
Spain	Sector rules	—	Workers' Statute (Arts. 20.3 and 20 bis) and Spanish data protection law (Arts. 87-90): proportionality and prior notice; Royal Decree 723/2026 from Oct 5, 2026.
Peru	High risk	September 10, 2027	Labor management is high-risk; labor-sector deadline Sep 10, 2027.
Ecuador	Data protection	—	The data protection law requires an impact assessment for large-scale systematic monitoring.
Mexico	Sector rules	—	NOM-037-STPS-2023: telework policy with data protection where applicable.
Chile	Data protection	December 1, 2026	Law 21,719: impact assessment and legal bases for processing worker data.
Colombia	Data protection	—	Law 1581/2012: purpose, proportionality and data subject authorization.
Brazil	Data protection	—	LGPD: purpose, necessity and transparency; bill PL 2338 would ban emotion recognition at work.
New York (incl. NYC)	Sector rules	—	New York electronic monitoring law (2022): prior written notice and acknowledgment.
California	Data protection	January 1, 2026	The CCPA covers employee data; risk assessments for systematic observation of workers.