Employee monitoring laws in the US: when employers must tell you

Monitoring software is now part of many jobs, from email and web filters to call recording, screenshots, location tracking and AI tools that score activity. In the US there is no single federal rule that tells every employer to disclose this. Instead, a few states have written notice laws, and other rules apply in particular situations. This page explains three state laws taken from their official text, what federal labor law says, and what workers and employers can do.

The short answer: in New York, Delaware and Connecticut, employers that monitor employees electronically must tell them first (New York: acknowledged written notice at hiring plus a posted notice; Delaware: a daily electronic notice or a one-time acknowledged notice; Connecticut: prior written notice, which a posted notice satisfies). None of these laws bans monitoring. Other states may have their own rules, so check where you work; New Jersey, for example, requires written notice before an employer uses a tracking device in a vehicle an employee uses (see New Jersey vehicle tracking notice), and Illinois bars employers from demanding access to personal social media accounts (see the Illinois social media password law).

New York: Civil Rights Law section 52-c

New York added section 52-c to its Civil Rights Law in 2021; the bill was signed on 8 November 2021 and took effect 180 days later (New York Assembly Bill A430 of 2021, chapter 583). Under the text as enacted:

• Who: any individual, corporation, partnership, firm or association with a place of business in the state. The state and its political subdivisions are not covered.
• What: monitoring or intercepting telephone conversations or transmissions, email or transmissions, or internet access or usage by any electronic device or system.
• Notice: prior written notice upon hiring to all employees subject to monitoring, in writing or electronic form, acknowledged by the employee in writing or electronically. The notice must say that these communications and internet use may be subject to monitoring at any and all times and by any lawful means.
• Posting: the employer must also post the notice in a conspicuous place readily available to the employees concerned.
• Enforcement: by the attorney general, with maximum civil penalties of $500 for a first offense, $1,000 for a second and $3,000 for each later offense.
• Exception: processes that manage the type or volume of email, voice mail or internet use, are not targeted at a particular person, and are done solely for system maintenance or protection.

Delaware: 19 Del. C. section 705

Delaware's law covers employers with a place of business in the state, and also the state and its agencies and political subdivisions (Delaware Code, Title 19, section 705). An employer may not monitor or intercept a Delaware employee's telephone conversations or transmissions, email or transmissions, or internet access or usage unless it either:

• gives an electronic notice of its monitoring policies at least once each day the employee uses the employer-provided email or internet services; or
• has first given a one-time notice, in writing or electronic form, acknowledged by the employee in writing or electronically.

The civil penalty is $100 for each violation, and the section is not an exclusive remedy. As in New York, untargeted processes done solely for computer system maintenance or protection are excluded.

Connecticut: General Statutes section 31-48d

Connecticut's law applies to any employer with employees, including the state and its political subdivisions (Connecticut General Statutes, section 31-48d). It defines electronic monitoring as collecting information on the employer's premises about employees' activities or communications by any means other than direct observation, including a computer, telephone, wire, radio, camera or electromagnetic, photoelectronic or photo-optical systems.

• Notice: an employer that engages in any type of electronic monitoring must give prior written notice to all employees who may be affected, stating the types of monitoring that may occur. A notice posted in a conspicuous place readily available to employees counts as that written notice.
• Exception for suspected misconduct: no prior notice is needed when the employer has reasonable grounds to believe employees are breaking the law, violating the legal rights of the employer or other employees, or creating a hostile workplace environment, and monitoring may produce evidence of it.
• Not covered: security monitoring of common areas held out for use by the public, collection of information that is prohibited under state or federal law, and criminal investigations.
• Enforcement: the Labor Commissioner may levy civil penalties after a hearing, up to $500 for a first offense, $1,000 for a second and $3,000 for each later offense. The annotations published with the statute note a Connecticut Supreme Court holding that there is no private cause of action under the section.

The definition is tied to the employer's premises. Whether monitoring software on a laptop used at home falls within it is not answered by the statute text, so remote workers and employers in Connecticut should not assume either way.

What these laws do and do not cover

All three laws are about notice. They do not limit what may be monitored, set rules for AI scoring, or give workers a right to see the data. Implanted chips are a separate matter: some states ban requiring them outright, see employer microchip implant laws. New York and Delaware were written around phone, email and internet use, so whether a particular tool such as location tracking or camera analytics falls within them depends on the wording and on how it is used. For data access, see how to request the data AI systems hold on you; for warehouse quotas, see warehouse quotas and algorithmic management.

In California, the state privacy agency says the CCPA covers residents who are employees and job applicants, since the employment data exemption expired on 31 December 2022, and that businesses using automated decisionmaking technology for significant decisions such as employment must meet specific requirements by 1 January 2027 (California Privacy Protection Agency, FAQ).

Federal labor law

In October 2022 the National Labor Relations Board's General Counsel issued memo GC 23-02, saying she would urge the Board to treat surveillance and automated management practices that would tend to interfere with employees' protected activity as presumptively unlawful, and to require employers to disclose the technologies they use to monitor and manage employees, their reasons and how they use the information (NLRB, 31 October 2022). On 14 February 2025 the Acting General Counsel rescinded that memo, along with others (NLRB, GC 25-05, 14 February 2025). The memo set out enforcement priorities rather than law, and the National Labor Relations Act's protection of employees acting together about working conditions still applies.

Questions to ask

• Workers: did I receive and sign a monitoring notice, and what does it list? Which tools record or score my work, and who sees the results?
• Employers: do our notices cover every tool we run in every state where we have staff, are acknowledgements on file, and is the New York notice posted? Would we be comfortable explaining each tool and its purpose to staff?

See also AI monitoring at work, AI in performance reviews and AI at work and workers' rights. This page is general information, not legal advice; laws change, so check the current text.