California AB 1331 Workplace Surveillance Bill Clears Legislature

California Workplace Surveillance Bill AB 1331 Clears the Legislature: What It Would Restrict

The California Legislature has passed Assembly Bill 1331, which would restrict employer use of workplace surveillance tools in workplace bathrooms, but the bill is not law. It cleared the Senate 28 to 5 on August 31, 2026, and now moves to enrollment before reaching the Governor's desk.

Information last verified on September 2, 2026.

Status: AB 1331 has passed both the Assembly and the Senate. As of September 2, 2026, it has not been enrolled, has not been presented to the Governor, and has not been signed, vetoed, or chaptered. It is not currently law.

Jurisdiction: California only. The bill's findings state it addresses a matter of statewide concern and would apply to all California cities, including charter cities, if enacted.

What Happened

Assembly Member Elhawary introduced AB 1331 on February 21, 2025, with coauthors Assembly Members Bryan, Mark González, and Ward, and Senators Becker, Cortese, and McNerney. The bill passed the Assembly in 2025 and moved to the Senate, where it was amended several times through the summer of 2025.

On September 13, 2025, the Senate ordered AB 1331 to the inactive file at the request of Senator Limón, a procedural move that shelves a bill without killing it. The bill sat there for roughly eleven months.

The Senate pulled AB 1331 from the inactive file on August 21, 2026, and amended it that same day. Lawmakers amended it again on August 28, 2026, before the Senate read it a third time and passed it on August 31, 2026, by a vote of 28 to 5. The Assembly concurred in the Senate's amendments the same day and ordered the bill to Engrossing and Enrolling, the drafting step that precedes presentment to the Governor. As of September 2, 2026, that step has not been recorded as complete, and the bill has not gone to the Governor.

What AB 1331 Would Restrict

AB 1331 would add Part 5.8, Labor Code Sections 1560 through 1566, to the Labor Code's employment regulation division. Section 1560, subdivision (f), defines a "workplace surveillance tool" as "a system, application, instrument, or device that collects or facilitates the collection of employee data, activities, communications, actions, biometrics, or behaviors by means other than direct observation by a person," including "video or audio surveillance, continuous incremental time-tracking tools, geolocation, electromagnetic tracking, photoelectronic tracking, a photo-optical system, or other means." Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and weapon-detection body scanners are excluded from the definition.

The bill's core rule is narrow. Section 1561, subdivision (a), states: "Unless directed by a court order, an employer shall not use a workplace surveillance tool to monitor or surveil employees in a bathroom located in the workplace." Subdivision (b)(1) gives an employee the right to leave behind any workplace surveillance tool on their person or in their possession when entering a bathroom. That right does not apply if the employee must remain available during a meal or rest period under federal or state law, and an employer may still check a device on the employee's one-time entry to and exit from the bathroom.

Two circumstances keep an employer out of violation under subdivision (c): an employee who voluntarily brings a device into the bathroom, and an employee who carries a badge or personal alarm system into the bathroom because an employer policy requires it for identification or safety purposes (or because it is needed to access a locked or secured bathroom), provided the device does not record audio or video and has no embedded or attached artificial intelligence.

Enforcement runs through the state, not through individual lawsuits. Section 1563 authorizes the Labor Commissioner to enforce the part through existing citation and hearing procedures in Labor Code Sections 98.3, 98.7, 98.74, or 1197.1, and separately authorizes a public prosecutor to enforce it under Labor Code Chapter 8 (commencing with Section 180). A civil action brought under either path may seek injunctive relief, punitive damages, and attorney's fees and costs, and an employer who violates the part is subject to a penalty of up to $500 for each violation, brought in superior court where the violation occurred or where the employer transacts business.

The bill carves out federal-law compliance, aircraft development for the national airspace, national security and defense work, and law enforcement agencies employing peace officers under specified Penal Code provisions. It does not include a separate exemption for small employers or unionized workplaces. Section 1564 also states that the new part does not limit any other state or local law, including Section 435, that gives employees equal or greater protection, and includes a standard severability clause.

What California Law Already Says About Employer Monitoring

California law already regulates some employer monitoring without AB 1331. Labor Code Section 435 has barred employers since 1999 from causing an audio or video recording to be made of an employee in a restroom, locker room, or room designated for changing clothes, unless a court orders it; a recording made in violation cannot be used by the employer for any purpose, and a violation is an infraction. See our overview of California's workplace recording rules for how that existing statute applies day to day.

Separately, Penal Code Section 632, part of California's two-party consent wiretapping law, makes it a crime to use an electronic recording or amplifying device to eavesdrop on or record a confidential communication without the consent of all parties, punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 per violation (up to $10,000 for a repeat violation) and up to a year in jail. That statute already shapes whether an employer can record conversations without consent in a California workplace.

AB 1331 would not replace either statute. Its own text states that the new part is not intended to limit any other state or local law, including Section 435, that provides equal or greater protection to employees.

What Happens Next

AB 1331 must still clear engrossing and enrolling and be formally presented to the Governor; that had not happened as of September 2, 2026.

Once presented, the California Constitution sets the clock. Article IV, Section 10, subdivision (a) gives the Governor the choice to sign a bill into law or veto it by returning it with objections to the house of origin. Because AB 1331 passed the Legislature before September 1 of the second calendar year of its two-year session, subdivision (b)(2) of that same section controls: a bill in the Governor's possession on or after September 1 of that year that is not returned by September 30 becomes a statute even without a signature. Watching for a signature, a veto message, or the September 30, 2026 deadline passing without action is what would move this story from developing to settled.

If AB 1331 becomes law, whether by signature, veto override, or the constitutional default, the bill does not state its own operative date. Absent a stated exception, Article IV, Section 8, subdivision (c)(1) of the Constitution provides that a statute enacted at a regular session takes effect on January 1 following a 90-day period from its enactment date, which would point to January 1, 2027 for a bill enacted in 2026.

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

AB 1331's path illustrates how narrow a workplace-surveillance bill can become by the time it reaches a floor vote. The version the Senate passed on August 31, 2026, adds a single, bathroom-specific rule to a Labor Code that already restricts restroom and locker-room recording under Section 435 and already requires all-party consent for confidential-communication recording under Penal Code Section 632. The bill's other defined terms, including its broad definition of "workplace surveillance tool," matter mainly because they set the boundaries of that one bathroom rule, not because the bill regulates surveillance tools everywhere they are used.

The enforcement design is also notable. AB 1331 does not create a stand-alone lawsuit right for an individual employee; it channels enforcement through the Labor Commissioner's existing citation and hearing procedures and through public prosecutors, with a per-violation penalty capped at $500. That places it closer to California's existing wage-and-hour enforcement model than to a private right of action, an enforcement structure other states have used for their own workplace-monitoring measures, including Maine's 2025 employer-surveillance disclosure law.

None of this is settled. Until the Governor acts or the constitutional deadline passes, AB 1331 remains a bill, and nothing here should be read as forecasting how the Governor will act.

How This Affects You

AB 1331 does not currently change any employer's obligations. California employers and employees remain governed by existing law, including Labor Code Section 435's restroom and locker-room recording ban and Penal Code Section 632's consent requirement for recording confidential communications.

Employers that already deploy workplace surveillance tools, from time-tracking systems to wearable recording devices, and employees who work under them, may want to track whether AB 1331 is signed, vetoed, or becomes law by constitutional default, since a bathroom-specific rule with Labor Commissioner enforcement would be new if it takes effect. Our overview of employee data privacy law covers the broader landscape this bill would sit inside.

This article will be updated if AB 1331 is signed, vetoed, or becomes law without a signature.

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. It describes a bill that has not been enacted. Consult a licensed California employment attorney for advice about a specific situation.

Related articles

• California workplace recording laws
• Can an employer record conversations without consent?
• Employee data privacy law
• Maine's 2025 employer-surveillance disclosure law

Last updated: 2026-09-02. This is a developing story; details verified as of 2026-09-02.