Protecting Workers in the Age of AI: Addressing Workplace Surveillance
Overview
Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation technologies are rapidly transforming the workplace. Employers are increasingly adopting tools like machine learning systems, data-driven algorithms, and robotics to reduce their reliance on human labor and monitor worker productivity. Amazon, among others, is automating its facilities using AI-enabled systems that track worker performance through time-on-task metrics, productivity quotas, video surveillance, and gamified ranking boards. While framed as efficiency-enhancing, these technologies raise significant concerns about worker privacy and safety.
Moreover, recent studies show that AI-driven automation is already reshaping employment patterns while contributing to job polarization and inequality. Despite the creation of new jobs, many workers – especially those engaged in repetitive tasks – are at a high risk of displacement and increased workplace monitoring. This is especially concerning in regions like Southern California’s Inland Empire, where a disproportionate share of jobs (such as those in the logistics industry) face high exposure to automation.
In response, labor groups are advocating for policies that limit how employers can use AI and workplace surveillance technologies, as well as measures that ensure workers have a voice in how employers implement these tools. As new technology adoption grows, policymakers are exploring ways to regulate how companies use surveillance technologies, protect workers’ privacy, and address the impacts of these new management practices.
This policy brief examines how recent policy efforts in California are responding to the rise of AI-related workplace surveillance. Drawing on academic literature, policy reports, and legislative proposals, we identify key labor concerns associated with AI-driven workplace monitoring and outline the primary policy approaches being considered to address them.
Key Findings
- AI-driven workplace surveillance is rapidly reshaping employer management practices across California, but it is especially impacting workers in the transportation, distribution, and logistics industry, where Amazon and other major logistics employers in the Inland Empire increasingly rely on automated monitoring, productivity tracking, and robotics.
- Workers report worsening working conditions under AI surveillance systems, including higher levels of stress, pressure to meet quotas, and fear of disciplinary action.
- The rise of AI-enabled workplace surveillance raises four main concerns: threats to worker privacy through extensive data collection; equity concerns linked to discrimination and disproportionate impacts on vulnerable workers; eroding working conditions and worker safety; and gaps in accountability caused by limited transparency and oversight of employer use of automated systems.
- Policymakers in California and other states are advancing several core policy strategies to address these concerns, including stronger employer disclosure requirements, expanded worker participation and collective bargaining rights over surveillance tools, shared governance structures, and clearer legal limits on high-risk AI and surveillance practices.
As workplace surveillance technologies become more widespread, there is an urgent need for commonsense regulatory frameworks and enforcement mechanisms that safeguard California workers’ privacy and safety in the workplace, especially for those most vulnerable to displacement and intensive surveillance.
Full Policy Brief Coming Soon!