California AB 1331 — Workplace Surveillance

SUMMARY

AB 1331 prohibits employers from using workplace surveillance tools to monitor employees in workplace bathrooms, subject to specified exceptions, and gives employees a qualified right to leave tools behind when entering a bathroom. Signed September 30, 2026 as Chapter 851, it takes effect January 1, 2027.

WHY IT MATTERS

This is workplace privacy and employee-monitoring legislation, not an AI-employment decision law. The rule covers defined surveillance tools generally, including non-AI devices, but is specific to bathrooms rather than a general ban on monitoring throughout the workplace.

KEY REQUIREMENTS

• Beginning January 1, 2027, an employer may not use a workplace surveillance tool to monitor or surveil employees in a bathroom located in the workplace unless directed by a court order, subject to the statutory exceptions.
• Employees have a qualified right to leave behind workplace surveillance tools on their person or in their possession when entering a bathroom.
• A workplace surveillance tool is a system, application, instrument, or device that collects or facilitates collection of employee data, activities, communications, actions, biometrics, or behaviors other than by direct human observation. Examples include audio/video surveillance, continuous incremental time tracking, geolocation, electromagnetic tracking, photoelectronic tracking, and photo-optical systems.
• The bathroom prohibition is not limited to a named industry, employee-only facilities, or a particular bathroom type. The act does not extend that prohibition expressly to locker rooms, changing rooms, lactation rooms, residences, or every off-duty area; other laws may provide those protections.

COVERAGE

Employers: Private and public persons employing or controlling wages, hours, or working conditions directly, indirectly, or through another person. Coverage expressly includes state and local governmental bodies, school and special districts, labor contractors and their clients, farm labor contractors, and foreign labor contractors. The act applies to all cities, including charter cities; no employee-count threshold is specified.

Workers: Any person employed by an employer. The final text protects employees and does not expressly extend these rights to job applicants or independent contractors.

Exceptions: Smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, and weapon-detection systems that automatically screen a person’s body are excluded from the tool definition.

Exceptions: A court order may direct otherwise. Employers may check tools for one-time entry to and exit from workplace bathrooms.

Exceptions: The leave-behind right does not apply when federal or existing state law requires the employee to remain available during meal or rest periods.

Exceptions: Section 1561(c)(1) states that an employer is not in violation of that section when an employee voluntarily chooses to bring a tool into a workplace bathroom. Other legal prohibitions remain applicable.

Exceptions: A tool, including a badge or personal alarm, may be brought in under an employer policy requiring possession on work premises for identification or safety, or to access a locked or secured bathroom, only if it neither detects nor records audio/video and has no physically embedded or attached AI.

Exceptions: Uses required by federal law, existing state law, federal regulation, or existing state regulation are preserved. A separate exemption covers specified aircraft, national-security, military, space, or defense development operations only where tool use is reasonably necessary to comply with a governing federal statute, regulation, or binding federal contract.

Exceptions: There is no collective-bargaining waiver or general security/health-and-safety exemption. The specific identification/safety-device and legal-compliance exceptions do not displace other laws providing equal or greater protection, including Labor Code § 435.

ENFORCEMENT & PENALTIES

Labor Code § 1563 authorizes Labor Commissioner investigations, temporary relief, citations, and civil actions, and enforcement by public prosecutors. In their civil actions, the text permits temporary or preliminary injunctive relief, punitive damages, and reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. AB 1331 does not expressly create a standalone employee private right of action; other rights and remedies under existing law are preserved.

Up to $500 for each violation, in addition to other remedies. The text does not specify that every day or every employee automatically constitutes a separate violation.

CHANGE HISTORY

1. 2026-10-07
   verification update

   Record re-verified

   Official source links, status, and key dates were checked for this maintenance release.

2. 2026-09-30
   signed

   AB 1331 signed and chaptered

   Governor approved the workplace-bathroom surveillance measure, filed as Chapter 851. Its requirements take effect January 1, 2027 under the regular-session default rule.

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