{
  "id": 4075297,
  "title": "As workplace surveillance grows, experts say it’s good to know the ways your employer is watching",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/29/as-workplace-surveillance-grows-experts-say-its-good-to-know-the-ways",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-08-29T01:23:01.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Associated Press",
    "slug": "associated-press",
    "url": "https://apnews.com/article/employer-surveillance-bossware-tracking-workplace-7d61e74242b872457bbfcf2223f9ebd5"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "As surveillance in the workplace expands, experts warn that employees need to be aware of the various methods their employers use to monitor them. College administrators scrutinized an adjunct professor's comments to students on personal essays, while a pharmacist was instructed to spend less time with patients after managers monitored the frequency and duration of her appointments. Warehouse scanners tracked the speed of workers to ensure they inspected hundreds of items per hour.\n\nThousands of employers employ technology to monitor the location, productivity, and communication of workers, a trend that gained momentum during the COVID-19 pandemic. A plethora of digital tools are utilized to track locations, collect data on task completion, and access work-issued device cameras, raising concerns about the erosion of employee privacy, even in personal spaces. Employers have long kept tabs on workers, but recent advancements in artificial intelligence and data science allow them to compile extensive data sets, or \"dossiers,\" which can be used to penalize employees or attempt to predict their behavior, according to Wilneida Negrón, director of research and policy at Coworker, a nonprofit that empowers workers to organize for better working conditions.\n\nNegrón notes that workers with the least power in the job market often become guinea pigs for intrusive data collection methods. Common workplace monitoring programs have inadvertently shared employees' names, email addresses, and other personal information with hundreds of external data brokers and technology companies, often without clearly informing the workers of this practice. Data privacy experts and monitored workers shared their concerns with The Associated Press regarding the risks of employer surveillance and suggested steps employees can take to safeguard their personal information.",
  "summary": "NEW YORK (AP) — College administrators read an adjunct professor’s comments to students on personal essays. Managers told a pharmacist to spend less time with patients after tracking the number and length of her appointments. Scanners on a warehouse conveyor belt monitored the pace of workers to ensure they inspected hundreds of items per…",
  "key_points": [
    "Workplace surveillance expands with tech adoption",
    "Employers use AI to compile employee dossiers",
    "Data privacy risks highlighted for low-power workers"
  ],
  "editors_take": "Growing workplace surveillance, fueled by advancements in AI and data science, erodes employee privacy, disproportionately affecting low-power workers, and raises concerns about data misuse and worker vulnerability.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}