A Healthy Mistrust: Curbing Biometric Data Misuse in the Workplace

This article addresses the best ways to mitigate the various privacy and discrimination risks inherent in the use of biometric monitoring in the workplace. While the federal and state regulation of monitoring workers is in its infancy, biometric monitoring itself is expanding rapidly. Innovations in wearables, rising health care costs, personalized medicine and the use of health data clearinghouses are among the factors fueling this expansion. This article analyzes the harms of misusing biometric and health data in the workplace as well as the limitations of current regulatory schemes, and offers three possible ways to curb those harms, varying in degrees of interventionism.