Workplace Video Monitoring: What Employers Need To Know

sec01The omnipresence of video cameras is a fact of life. The average American, aware or not, is caught on surveillance camera more than 75 times a day.

Given the availability and effectiveness of inexpensive video equipment, many companies use video to monitor their entire operations for safety, security and quality control. But video surveillance can have unintended consequences well beyond its intended purpose. For example, one big-box retailer instructed a breastfeeding employee to use the store’s computer server room for lactation. After using it two or three times a day, she discovered it had a monitored surveillance camera. Now the company is facing a lawsuit.

Employers should develop video monitoring policies that comply with the requirements of state laws as well as with employees’ right to organize. We recently authored a Law360 article, Workplace Video Monitoring: What Employers Need To Know” that addresses federal and state limits on video monitoring in the workplace for both unionized and nonunion workers.

The full article can be found here.