With the advent of AI comes a lot of data tracking. Artificial intelligence (AI) surveillance tools can track your keystrokes, analyze the emails you send, and track when you’re at or away from your desk. It’s a lot of information that companies can use to look at an employee’s performance, at home or in the office. 

Where does the line between your personal privacy and AI surveillance conflict? How much information is your employer allowed to gather and use to make managerial decisions? Take a closer look at the workplace laws in California and what they say about the use of AI surveillance.

Get to Know the Protections Provided by CCPA/CPRA

The CCPA/CPRA Mandate went into effect in 2023, and the employee exemption ended. This entitles California workers to the same consumer privacy rights as others. Your workplace data is protected, and you have the right to opt-out of data collection.

If AI surveillance is used in your workplace, you must be issued a Notice of Collection. It details:

• What data is being collected, including the type of data, such as keystrokes or geolocation.
• Why is that data being collected?
• How long the company plans to retain that data.

You have the right to access this data, too. It’s your right to request a copy of any personal information collected about you, including data that AI generates about you. 

If you’re not told about new monitoring tools, it’s wrong. It’s also wrong to receive a partial report with redacted information or reports that are written to be deliberately confusing or hard to understand.

AI Surveillance Cannot Monitor You Off-Duty or in Private Areas

Your employer wants to make sure that all workers are in the bathroom for a reasonable time. It installs cameras in the bathrooms for that reason. That’s illegal. Cameras cannot be used in private spaces, like a room where a breastfeeding mom pumps her milk or a bathroom. Cameras cannot invade privacy.

Monitoring cannot happen during off-duty hours. For instance, suppose you’re a remote worker and use your home computer. Your employer logs your keystrokes. Once you log out of the company servers for the day, the surveillance software cannot still track your activity.

Security of Biometric Data and Personal Information

California laws do not allow biometric data that is sensitive personal information. If your employer uses AI to analyze your emails or phone calls to determine your engagement with others, emotional state, or mood, that’s illegal unless you’ve provided permission. 

Understanding California’s Civil Rights Department’s Anti-Discrimination Regulations

California’s Civil Rights Department (CRD) bans any form of discrimination in relation to a business. Not only do these laws protect against discrimination in advertisements, but it also protects employees, applicants, apprentices, union workers, and other people who work for or apply for a job at a specific company.

The use of AI cannot discriminate against people due to their:

• Age (40 or older)
• Ancestry (national origin)
• Disability (mental or physical)
• Gender identity
• Gender/Sex
• Genetic information
• Marital status
• Medical condition
• Military or veteran status
• Pregnancy/Childbirth
• Race (color)
• Religion
• Reproductive health decision-making
• Sexual orientation

In 2025, the California Civil Rights Council added regulations that protect against employment discrimination due to automated-decision systems or AI. While employers can use AI, the system must not be biased. If AI rules out a person of a protected class, it’s discriminatory behavior. 

This leads to the disparate impact laws: This legal standard holds an employer liable for discriminatory outcomes, even if it was never intended. An employer may not realize the data is biased when setting up an AI system. They’re still responsible, however. Before using AI, they needed to run anti-bias testing.

For example, the HR team at a home building company decides to save time using an AI screener. The employee adds a simple description of the company’s dream worker, starting with “My ideal employee will…” but down the paragraph the HR person says, “I want workmen who.” While the employer wasn’t even thinking of bias when adding that word, AI now searches for male applicants.

Another example is a system that automatically directs women to jobs like nurses, daycare providers, and restaurant waitstaff while Hispanic men are directed to cab driving. It’s biased and discriminatory.

AI Works Best With Human Oversight:

For AI systems to be fair, they must have human oversight. A company cannot implement AI surveillance and leave it to make all decisions. There must be human involvement, but that’s not always what happens.

Many companies read the analysis and take it at its core, without taking a closer look. That often leads to discrimination and unfair workplace treatment. 

Say an AI system looks at production times in a factory and sees one worker had substantially lower output than the other workers in that department. Management uses that data to terminate the employee. 

Had they taken a closer look, they could have seen that the worker is breastfeeding and needs to pump milk twice a shift. That job termination is unfair and could be grounds for an employment discrimination lawsuit.

Automated-decision systems (ADS) need to have accurate data. Someone needs to make sure that the correct information is given to the AI software and that another person is verifying the data before decisions are made. It’s also important that employees are allowed to see the data used and provide corrections when needed.

The CRD’s regulations took effect on October 1, 2025. They:

• Clarify that ADS violates California laws if it harms job applicants or employees based on protected characteristics.
• Ensure that ADS assessment tools that ask about disabilities are unlawful medical inquiries. 
• Require employees to maintain ADS data for at least four years.

What to Do If You Suspect Your Employee Is Going Too Far

You suspect your employer or potential employer has taken the use of AI too far. What do you do?

• Contact the HR department and request a Notice of Collection and a copy of data AI collected about you.
• Formally Request Information: Contact HR or your designated Privacy Officer and formally request the current Notice of Collection and a copy of your Personal Information and any AI-generated inferences about you. (Note the 45-day response requirement).
• Document everything you experienced, including dates and times.
• File a complaint with the CPPA or CRD if you believe you’ve been a victim of discrimination, or, even better, talk to an attorney specializing in employment discrimination.

With California’s pairing of CCPA/CPRA privacy rights and the anti-discrimination rules from CRD, you are protected from management overreach. If you suspect AI surveillance is infringing on your employee rights and privacy, talk to an employment law attorney.

Shegerian Conniff specializes in unfair workplace behaviors, including inappropriate AI surveillance. Schedule a free consultation to discuss your situation and see what next steps are appropriate.