Employee monitoring law · New York
Written notice on hire, signed acknowledgement, and a posted notice, all three.
Notice on hire, a signed acknowledgement, and a posted notice, all three, before monitoring begins.
- Region
- North America
- Instruments
- 2 governing
- Employer duties
- 3 listed
- Last reviewed
- August 22, 2026
New York · what the law requires
Notice and proportionality
Since May 2022, New York private employers with a place of business in the state must give written notice of electronic monitoring to every employee on hire, obtain a written or electronic acknowledgement, and post a notice in a conspicuous place. The notice must cover monitoring of telephone, email and internet access by any electronic device or system. The duty is procedural and easy to fail on the acknowledgement step.
- Written notice on hireGiven to every new employee at hiring, describing that telephone, email and internet access may be monitored by any lawful means.
- A recorded acknowledgementHard copy or electronic. This is the step employers most often skip, and the one that is easiest for a regulator to check.
- A posted noticeIn a conspicuous place readily available for employees to view.
- Proof Ledger
- Outcomes
- Certificates
- Audit log
- Data access
- Disputes
- Data egress
- Export
- What We See
- Controls
- AKAria K. viewed screenshotsLena M. · 3 capturesScreen capturemacOS · London09:42a91f…4c023d7b…91ee
- JMJon M. exported time reportDesign team · CSVmacOS · Berlin09:313d7b…91ee77c5…0ba4
- SDSara D. opened capture reviewRavi P. · one flagged frameWindows · Manchester09:1877c5…0ba4e208…5f13
- wm_live_7f2… read /v1/deliverablesScoped key · read onlyPublic API · allowlisted IP08:57e208…5f13b64a…2d90
- LMLena M. viewed her own recordWhat We SeemacOS · London08:44b64a…2d901cf9…8e77
- AKAria K. changed capture policyBlur set to alwaysmacOS · London08:261cf9…8e7705d2…ae31
The instruments, and which control answers each duty
- Civil Rights Law § 52-c: N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 52-c (A.430/S.2628). Notice on hire, written or electronic acknowledgement, and a conspicuously posted notice of electronic monitoring.
- NY SHIELD Act: N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 899-bb. Reasonable safeguards for private information. Relevant to how monitoring data is then held.
No product does this part
What you must still do yourself
Compliance is a property of your deployment. These are the steps in New York that no vendor can complete on your behalf, and skipping them is what turns a rollout into a finding.
- 1Draft the notice text and add the acknowledgement step to onboarding.
- 2Post the physical or intranet notice.
- 3Re-notify when you materially change what is monitored.
- If you get it wrongAttorney General enforcement: $500 for a first offence, $1,000 for a second, $3,000 for third and subsequent offences.
Verify the claim
Every control above, on the page that describes it
Sources and review date
Last reviewed August 22, 2026This is a summary of how employee-monitoring rules generally work in this jurisdiction, written to help you scope a rollout and brief your own advisers. It is not legal advice, it is not a substitute for it, and law changes. Verify against the primary sources listed and take local counsel before you deploy.
Nearby jurisdictions
Monitoring law elsewhere in North America
- CaliforniaEmployees have full CCPA rights since 2023, including deletion and correction.
- IllinoisBIPA carries a private right of action. This is the state where monitoring gets sued.
- Canada (federal)Reasonableness is the statutory test, and the OPC applies a four-part necessity analysis.
- OntarioA written electronic monitoring policy is mandatory at 25+ employees, refreshed annually.
- QuebecLaw 25 adds privacy by default, impact assessments and a right to explanation.
- United States (federal)Federal law is permissive; the real constraints are state law and the NLRA.
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