The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), an organization that aims to influence technology policy, announced Sept. 4 it is endorsing three bills introduced by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. The bills would establish regulations for workplace technologies CDT said can be harmful to employees.
The CDT endorsed the Stop Spying Bosses Act (SSBA), which would limit employers' electronic surveillance of their employees and require disclosures about surveillance practices, according to a CDT news release.
"If passed, it would be the strongest workplace surveillance bill yet seen at the federal level," CDT said in the release. "It would impose hard limits on harmful uses of bossware, moving beyond the weak notice-and-consent requirements that underpin many data privacy bills."
The bill would ban employers from surveilling their employees while off-duty or engaged in union-related labor, and it would prohibit employers from selling the data they collect on their workers to third parties, the release reported.
Casey introduced the SSBA in February alongside Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, according to Feb. 2 release from Casey's office.
“As the power imbalance in workplaces continues to grow, employers are increasingly using invasive surveillance technologies that allow them to track their workers like pieces of equipment,” Casey said in the February release. “American workers are the backbone of our country, and they deserve to be treated with basic dignity at work. The Stop Spying Bosses Act is a first step to level the playing field for workers by holding their bosses accountable for using invasive technology against them.”
The CDT also endorsed Casey's No Robot Bosses Act (NRBA), which would target automated decision systems, according to the CDT release. The bill, which "would significantly advance the principles of the Civil Rights Standards," would require employers to disclose their use of ADS and describe what metrics their ADS uses to make decisions. The bill would also give workers the right to appeal decisions that were made by automated decision systems.
Casey and Schatz introduced the NRBA in July, according to a July 20 release from Casey's office.
“Right now, there is nothing stopping a corporation from using artificial intelligence to hire, manage, or even fire workers without the involvement of a human being," Casey said in the July release. "As robot bosses become more prevalent in the workplace, we have an obligation to protect working families from the dangers of employers misusing and abusing these novel technologies.”
The third bill endorsed by the CDT is the Exploitative Workplace Surveillance and Technologies Task Force Act, which would create a task force to study and report on the use of surveillance technologies by employers, according to the CDT release.
"Casey’s bills would represent significant positive steps toward the regulation of emerging workplace technologies and practices that are harming workers every day," the CDT said in the release.
The group urged other members of the Senate to "take up all three bills in earnest" and said local and state policymakers should use the bills as a guide for "regulating bossware and automated employment decision tools going forward," the CDT release reported.
