Sponsors (8)
Official title: Prohibit, or require disclosure of, the surveillance, monitoring, and collection of certain worker data by employers, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 18, 2026 by Edward John Markey · Last progress June 18, 2026
The bill substantially strengthens worker privacy, transparency, and enforcement against invasive workplace surveillance — but it does so at the cost of meaningful compliance burdens, heightened litigation risk, and operational and regulatory complexities for employers and governments.
Most workers (employees and applicants, including gig and public‑sector workers) gain stronger limits on employer surveillance: bans on sensitive inferences, restrictions on off‑duty monitoring, requirements to limit collection to necessary/least‑invasive uses, and time‑limited retention of data.
Workers get meaningful access and contest rights: timely access to data collected about them, procedures to correct inaccurate records, notice when automated data influenced employment decisions, and short windows to review and request reconsideration.
Employees gain stronger enforcement and remedies: a federal enforcement path plus a private right to sue with statutory/trebled damages, injunctive relief, and attorney's fees, and state attorneys general can also bring actions.
Employers—especially small and medium businesses—face substantial new compliance, reporting, translation, and recordkeeping costs to meet disclosure, opt‑in, access, and retention rules.
Businesses face greatly increased litigation and liability exposure (private suits, trebled/statutory damages, state parens patriae actions), raising insurance and legal costs that may be passed to workers or consumers.
Operational constraints: opt‑in rules, narrow permitted uses, seven‑day disclosure/update timings, and strict vendor contractual requirements could delay or complicate routine HR, security, and productivity tool integrations.
Based on analysis of 13 sections of legislative text.
Limits employer collection/use/transfer of employee data, requires disclosures, access/correction rights, creates a DOL division to regulate and enforce workplace surveillance protections.
Creates new federal rules limiting how employers and their service providers may collect, use, transfer, or sell employee data and automated decision systems. It requires employers to disclose what worker data they collect, give workers access and correction rights, prohibits certain invasive or discriminatory uses, and sets retention limits. Establishes a new Worker Protection and Technology Division at the Department of Labor to run the program, conduct studies, issue regulations and guidance, coordinate with other agencies and regulators, create advisory boards of experts, and enforce the law through administrative actions and private lawsuits. Major provisions take effect 60 days after enactment and the required Labor Department study must be delivered within one year and updated annually.