As of Tuesday, employers in Ontario with 25 or more workers will be required to disclose if, how, and why they are monitoring their employees electronically.
Minister of Labour, Training and Skills Development Monte McNaughton says employers have more ways than ever before to monitor where their workers are and what they're doing, but also that the privacy of workers must be protected, and he considers this new legislation a starting point towards his goals.
"We heard a lot during the pandemic that there were instances where companies took screenshots of laptops every ten minutes, recorded audio and video of workers working from home," McNaughton said. "Part of our mission is to rebalance the scales to keep up with the technological changes in the workplace, as well as ensuring employees and workers have the tools to protect themselves when it comes to privacy."
Under the proposed changes, employers with 25 or more workers would be required to have a written electronic monitoring policy in place, which would contain information on whether the employer electronically monitors workers, and a description of how, and in what circumstances, the employer does this.
"I envision workers going into interviews and saying to employers 'What is your right to disconnect policy? What's your policy around electronic monitoring?' This empowers the worker to choose what kind of company they want to work for," McNaughton said.
In addition, the employer would also need to disclose the purpose of collecting information through electronic monitoring.
Ontario is the first province to require electronic monitoring policies by requiring employers to be transparent on how employees use of computers, cell phones, GPS and other electronic devices are being tracked.