Abstract
Employee privacy in workplaces is not a new concern but new developments in artificial intelligence (AI) enabling powerful analytics tools revived the debate. In this paper, I criticize the Individual Choice argument according to which employees’ consent to workplace analytics tools is sufficient to justify the use of workplace analytics tools. Beyond usual conditions to secure valid consent from data subjects and to respect contextual integrity, I draw on emerging conceptions of privacy to propose a Collective Choice argument: employees considering consent to data analytics tools must engage in collective decision to establish conditions. I develop two arguments. First, this is necessary to prevent negative externalities – when one’s choices affect others. Second, it is necessary to prevent coordination failure – the personal data one reveals may be innocuous on its own but, when aggregated with everyone else’s data, it leads to an under-provision of privacy and undermines everyone’s rights and interests.