On March 11th, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb signed into law HB 1143, prohibiting employers from requiring a candidate for employment or an employee to have a device implanted or otherwise incorporated into their body, as a condition of employment. The Indiana law will take effect July 1, 2021.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused many companies to instruct employees to work-from-home for the foreseeable future, which resulted in a spike in the use of employee monitoring technologies in the workplace. Frequently, the aim is to track an employee’s physical location, to measure productivity, or, most recently, to track close contacts for COVID-19-related contact tracing purposes. These measures bring up questions about proper protection for employee privacy rights.
Advancements in technology have made it easier to monitor remote employees, and by extension easier to violate the law for employers that are not careful. Several states have taken legislative action to prohibit an employer from requiring an employee to permit implantation of a device or microchip as a condition of employment or continued employment, Indiana being the latest. We provide an in-depth analysis of the Indiana law here, along with legislative activity in other states.