Study: Workplace Monitoring Apps Share Employee Data with Ad Giants
New research reveals common workplace monitoring apps share employee data with Meta, Google, and data brokers.
Why it matters: Employee monitoring tools intended for productivity tracking are sending personal data to major ad platforms. This exposes organizations to privacy risks, compliance challenges, and underscores the need for transparent data governance.
- A Columbia Law School study finds many workplace apps pass data to Meta, Google, and other data brokers.
- Researchers analyzed 10 major apps with over 12.5 billion collective downloads on Google Play.
- Gmail collects 26 data types; Notion shares 8 types, including user emails and device IDs, with third parties.
- The average monitored app gathers roughly 20 personal data types and shares about 2 with third parties.
Workplace monitoring tools designed to oversee employee productivity are routinely sharing data with digital advertising giants, according to a Columbia Law School study led by Stephanie Nguyen. The report found that popular apps such as Gmail, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom Workplace, and others are transmitting employee data to companies like Meta, Google, and a variety of data brokers.
- The study examined 10 widely used workplace apps—including Microsoft Outlook, Google Meet, Trello, Workday, Notion, and Todoist—which together have racked up over 12.5 billion downloads on the Google Play Store, per industry analysis.
- On average, each app collects nearly 20 distinct types of data from employees, with approximately 2 of those being shared externally.
- Gmail alone collects 26 distinct data types, including location data, user and device identifiers, and app interactions, many explicitly for advertising or marketing purposes.
- Notion shares eight types of information—such as email addresses, user IDs, and device IDs—with third parties for similar reasons, as reported by TechRadar.
The findings highlight a disconnect between productivity monitoring and respect for employee privacy, opening the door to possible noncompliance with data protection laws. Vanessa Burbano, Assistant Professor at Columbia Business School, notes that boosting employer-employee communication on company ethics can improve remote work, but increased surveillance may negate these benefits.
As reliance on workplace monitoring grows, organizations face heightened scrutiny to ensure transparency and data governance best practices.
By the numbers:
- 12.5B+ — Combined downloads of the 10 analyzed workplace apps on Google Play
- 26 — Number of distinct data types Gmail collects from users
- 2 — Average number of data types each app shares with third parties