Project Overview
The Law Commission of Ontario’s Workplace Surveillance Project explores the growing use of digital monitoring and surveillance technologies in the workplace, and their implications for areas which may include privacy and human rights, employment and labour law, platform workers, and AI governance.
A review of these issues will be published as a public Consultation Paper in 2026. The LCO will widely distribute these materials to support a broad and inclusive public consultation process.
The LCO invites anyone with an interest or information for the project to contact the project lead (see contact information below).
Advisory Committee
An independent Advisory Committee is currently being established and its members will be announced once confirmed.
What Issues Are Being Looked At?
Workplaces across Ontario are increasingly using digital monitoring and surveillance technologies to track, measure, and manage work. These tools can include:
- activity-tracking software
- location tracking
- cameras and audio monitoring
- algorithm-based performance scoring
- wearable devices that monitor biometrics
- online profiling and social media monitoring
In many workplaces, several of these technologies are used at the same time, often supported by automated or AI-driven systems.
Employers across diverse sectors may adopt these technologies intending to improve productivity, safety, security, and operational efficiency. At the same time, their use can raise serious concerns for workers, including negative impacts on privacy, dignity, mental health, transparency, and fairness. Questions also arise about how work is assigned, evaluated, and paid; monitoring of personal devices outside work hours or at home; and about the cumulative effect of constant or overlapping forms of monitoring.
Governments in Europe, the United States and Canada are beginning to respond to these concerns. In Ontario, amendments to the Employment Standards Act, 2000 require certain employers to have written policies on electronic monitoring. The Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act, 2022 introduced new disclosure requirements for some platform-based work, including the use of work assignment and payment algorithms. Canadian Privacy Commissioners have also published research examining workplace surveillance and algorithmic management.
These initiatives represent important first steps, but they do not address the full range of issues raised by workplace surveillance. The LCO believes the timing is right for a more comprehensive examination of how these technologies affect workers, how existing laws respond, and what further law and policy reform options may be needed.
Current Project Phase
The LCO announced this project in early 2026. The project is in early stages of development.
The LCO will publish a project Consultation Paper in 2026 and will widely distribute these materials to support a broad and inclusive public consultation process.
The LCO invites anyone with an interest in or information for the project to contact the project lead.
Project Lead and Contacts
The project lead is Ryan Fritsch, Legal Counsel, Law Commission of Ontario. He can be contacted at rfritsch@lco-cdo.org.
The LCO can be reached at LawCommission@lco-cdo.org or through the Contact page.