Ethical AI surveillance balances oversight and transparency

But inside enterprises, the line between helpful analytics and intrusive surveillance is blurring fast. In May 2026, reports emerged that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had hired Palantir to develop a tool for tracking federal employees' return-to-office compliance, raising concerns among privacy advocates.

In June, Meta scaled back an internal employee monitoring tool it had built to help train its AI systems after receiving pushback from employees. While AI systems can see and infer more about workers than ever before, this visibility can erode employee trust.