(ALBANY, NY) – Today, a coalition of more than two dozen organizations announced support for New York Senate Bill 7623/Assembly Bill A.9315, the Bossware and Oppressive Technologies (BOT) Act. This bill, sponsored by Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assembly Member George Alvarez, would provide crucial protections to workers in the face of the threats posed by electronic surveillance and automated management (or bossware) systems and automated employment decision tools (AEDTs).
Bossware systems have been shown to threaten workers’ health and safety in addition to their privacy. AEDTs have been demonstrated to show persistent bias–and often not to work at all. Moreover, workers are often unaware when these technologies are being used and rarely have the opportunity to challenge unfair or discriminatory decisions that are made using them. The BOT Act would help level the playing field by increasing transparency and protecting workers from exploitative and harmful uses of these technologies.
The BOT Act would protect New York’s workers from harmful uses of workplace technology by:
- Limiting the circumstances under which employers can use technology to surveil workers and collect their data;
- Requiring companies to provide meaningful notice and conduct independent impact assessments and validation studies when deploying bossware or AEDTs; and
- Giving workers greater input in the use of data-driven technologies in the workplace and labor market.
“Employers use bossware systems to monitor and collect data on workers and automated hiring tools to drive decisions that can alter the course not just of workers’ careers, but also their lives,” said Matt Scherer, Senior Policy Counsel for Workers’ Rights and Technology at the Center for Democracy & Technology. “Too often, we are seeing examples of tech in the workplace lead to unfair hiring outcomes or undermine workers’ privacy, safety, and legal rights. The BOT Act will help ensure that innovations in workplace technology do not come at the cost of harming workers.”
“All workers deserve fair treatment on the job, and that means workplaces free from invasive surveillance and arbitrary decision-making. These problems aren’t new, but as more and more corporations deploy unproven and opaque bossware systems, many New Yorkers now must work in a climate of fear with little information about how these systems evaluate them and what they must do to keep their job. We have seen how employers use these systems to push workers to do work at unsafe speeds or under dangerous conditions,” said Irene Tung, Senior Researcher and Policy Analyst at the National Employment Law Project. “Every job in New York should be a good job, and the BOT Act would provide workers with transparency, common-sense protections, and a voice in how these systems are deployed in their workplaces.”
“When employers use invasive electronic monitoring systems that track workers’ every move or use biased, ineffective hiring tools, New Yorkers are exploited and discriminated against,” said Daniel Schwarz, Senior Privacy & Technology Strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union. “We need to pass the BOT Act to empower workers against exploitative surveillance, protect people against discriminatory algorithms, and make New York a leader in setting labor protections in the digital age.”
Companies use bossware most frequently in vulnerable lower-wage jobs where workers are disproportionately from historically marginalized groups, including immigrants, women, people of color, and people with disabilities. Absent strong regulation, these technologies could magnify existing inequities in the workplace and labor market. New York’s Warehouse Worker Protection Act has helped protect warehouse workers from these harmful consequences. The BOT Act would do the same for all workers in the Empire State.
The BOT Act is especially timely given the ineffectiveness of New York City’s AEDT ordinance, which went into effect last year. That ordinance does not cover bossware systems and, due to loopholes and weak enforcement provisions, companies have been able to largely ignore the ordinance’s AEDT requirements. Effective workplace technology regulation means providing clear and robust safeguards against arbitrary, discriminatory, and otherwise harmful uses of AEDTs and bossware. In addition, it means requiring employers and vendors to provide meaningful and comprehensive information to all stakeholders regarding the systems they develop and deploy. The BOT Act would accomplish these goals, protecting workers in many ways that NYC’s ordinance does not.
This endorsement statement provides a detailed description of how the BOT Act will protect New York workers.
The undersigned organizations have endorsed S.7623/A.9315, the BOT Act.
A Better Balance
Athena Coalition
Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN)
Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT)
Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
Center on Race & Digital Justice (CR&DJ)
Communications Workers of America (CWA)
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF)
National Black Worker Center (NBWC)
National Center for Law and Economic Justice
National Employment Law Project (NELP)
National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA)
National Employment Lawyers Association – New York (NELA-NY)
National Institute for Workers’ Rights
National Partnership for Women & Families
National Women’s Law Center (NWLC)
New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU)
Oxfam America
PowerSwitch Action
Restaurant Opportunity Centers – New York (ROC-NY)
Surveillance Resistance Lab
Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.)
Upturn