Electronic Monitoring of Employees – New Policy Requirements

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On February 24, 2022, the Minster of Labour announced that the Ontario government will be introducing legislation requiring employers to create policies regarding the electronic monitoring of employees.  Like the requirement for RTD policies, the new legislation will apply to employers with 25 or more workers whether working on-site or remotely.  The policy will need to contain:

  • Information on whether the employee electronically monitors employees
  • If so, a description of how and in what circumstances the employer does this
  • The purpose of collecting information through electronic monitoring

The announcement suggests that the purpose of the policy is to advise employees if they are being tracked using electronic monitoring – for example, if the employer utilizes and monitors surveillance cameras, if employees are followed using GPS tracking, if the employer utilizes software to track employee productivity.  However, these types of intentional tracking are only one means of collecting electronic data about employees. Most of the electronic tools that employees use in their everyday work can be used to track their work, even if monitoring employees isn’t the intended purpose for data collection on those tools. At this time, it is unclear the extent to which this “passive” monitoring will need to be addressed in the required policy.

The new legislation is expected soon, and we will provide an update when the Bill is published.