AI surveillance: Reclaiming privacy through informational control

With the rise of algorithmic management, the deployment of AI surveillance has proliferated in the modern workplace. AI surveillance relies on advanced computational methods to draw statistical inferences about workers from their data. These inferences are subsequently used by employers to inform various organisational and managerial decisions. This commodifies workers into statistical entities, which objectifies and instrumentalises the value of human work as a series of data points for algorithmic analysis. The article explores how this transformation impacts the precarious role of privacy in the employment context, which already navigates the inherent informational imbalances that arise from the structural subordination of workers to employers and are further exasperated by AI surveillance. It focuses on the remedies of EU law that instantiate specific notions of informational control as a core ingredient to privacy and data protection. This involves consideration of the General Data Protection Regulation, as well as the jurisprudence of Articles 7 and 8 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, and Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The article argues that a greater emphasis on workers’ informational control consolidates existing privacy protections and mitigates the systemic risks of data-driven commodification.