Many Ontario companies will soon need to disclose to employees whether they are electronically monitoring their activities.

In April, Ontario became the first province to enact a new transparency law, as part of the Working for Workers Act, which requires companies with 25 or more employees to have a written policy clearly stating whether employees' use of computers, mobile phones, GPS systems, and others.

are electronically tracked, and if so, to what extent. According to the Ministry of Labor, the policy must include information about whether the employer electronically monitors their workers, and if so, "a description of how and under what circumstances the employer does so."

The ministry also says employers need to disclose the "purpose" of collecting such information.

As of Tuesday, these policies must be in place. Within 30 days, this information must be disclosed to employees.

In May, Howard Allan Levitt, an employment lawyer and managing partner at Levitt Sheikh, told CTVNews.ca that the new policy will not change whether an employer monitors you – they are now only required to inform this information.

He said, "It does not change the law regarding what employers can do, but it requires employers to tell [employees]."

Previously, employers could inform employees that they had the right to monitor certain information and retain it, but they were not obliged to tell employees whether they applied such practices.

Levitt said: "Employers can conduct monitoring, and they always can... which is completely legal in 95 percent of cases." "But now they have to tell employees they are doing it."