Ontario Employment Standards Act, Part XI.1 (written policy on electronic monitoring) 2000

An employer required to have the policy must give a copy to each of its employees within 30 days of the day it was required to have the policy in place and, when an existing policy is changed, within 30 days of the change. Per the Ministry guide the copy may be a printed copy, an email attachment the employee can print, or a link where the employee has a reasonable opportunity to access the document and a printer; no fresh copy is needed each year unless the policy changes. This is one of the three subsections a complaint may be made about.

The employer must give a new employee a copy within 30 days of the later of the day the person becomes an employee and the day the employer was required to have the policy in place.

An employer that employs 25 or more employees on 1 January of any year must, before 1 March of that year, ensure it has a written policy in place, covering all of its employees, on the electronic monitoring of employees. Per the Ministry guide the policy must cover every employee to whom the provision applies, including managers, executives and shareholders who are employees, and every assignment employee placed with the employer in Ontario; different groups may have different policies, in one document or several, or the policy may sit inside a wider HR manual. Once in place, a new policy is not needed each year.

The written policy must say whether the employer electronically monitors employees. Per the Ministry guide, an employer that does not monitor must say so expressly in the policy.

Where the employer monitors, the policy must describe how it may electronically monitor employees and the circumstances in which it may do so. The Ministry guide's examples: GPS tracking of a delivery vehicle for the whole workday, every workday; software that monitors employee emails and online chats at any time.

Where the employer monitors, the policy must set out the purposes for which it may use information obtained through electronic monitoring. Section 41.1.1(7) confirms that the section does not limit how the employer may use that information, so the stated purposes describe the employer's intentions rather than cap its use; other law (privacy statutes, collective agreements) may still limit use.

The employer must retain, or arrange for another person to retain, a copy of every written electronic monitoring policy required under Part XI.1 for three years after that policy stops being in effect.