数据丰富的工作场所如何改善工人的安全、健康和体验

By Eli Clemens | October 2025 Imagine a futuristic hospital. An automated system alertsemergency room staff that an incoming patient has ablood-borne pathogen based on their electronic healthrecord, allowing the hospital to prepare additional safetyprecautions. An electronic system tracks staff as theyenter patients’ rooms, reminding them if they forgot towash their hands as they move between patients. Andwearable health monitors tracking heart rate data andother indicators of stress and fatigue recommend whenstaff should take breaks to ensure that they stay healthyand provide optimal care.1 This vision of a technology-forward workplace in which an invisible layer ofalgorithms supports and protects workers is not science fiction. It isincreasingly realizable with today’s technology, building on decades ofdevelopments miniaturizing computers, sensors, and batteries, as well asimprovements in networks and machine learning technologies.2The sameis true for other industries and workplaces, from capital- and labor-intensive factories to white-collar offices. Technology—including data,hardware, and software—that can enhance workplace safety, accessibility,productivity, and convenience is quickly maturing. However, U.S. policy at the federal and state levels is woefully behind andnot advancing at a fast enough pace to realize this potential. Current policydiscussions about the future of work are inadequately narrow to keep upwith the rate of advancement in emergent workplace technology. Thesediscussions are also counterproductive, fixated almost exclusively aroundcritics’ claims that data-collecting workplace technology is a means to oneend: worker surveillance. What this problematic narrative does is both slowdown potential upsides from adopting these technologies and fuelunproductive regulation. A productive policy approach to the advent of emergent workplace technology would focus on two overarching goals:1) accelerating development, testing, and adoption of innovative workplacetechnology and 2) supporting positive uses of the technology whilemitigating negative ones. This report explores the future of workplace technology and the benefitssuch technology can bring to both employers and employees. It alsoconsiders the role of other stakeholders, such as technologists andpolicymakers, in this conversation. Without dismissing drawbacks thatcome with a more automated, data-driven workplace environment, thisreport instead explores options that policymakers have to incentivizeworker benefits in the limited window before wider adoption of thesetechnologies takes place. It also looks at the current state of federal andstate policy governing the usage of workplace technology and concludeswith practical policy recommendations that aim to spur discussion and newapproaches to this topic. Specifically, policymakers should recognize the potential of data-richworkplaces by aiming to simultaneously boost workplace technologyresearch and development (R&D) and increase adoption with outlinedemployer responsibilities and worker protection measures. To do so, theCenter for Data Innovation recommends the following: Establisha federal frameworkclarifying lawful uses of workplacedata and distinguishing protective from invasive technologies.Boostworkplace technology R&Dthrough dedicated federalfunding and pilot programs.Leveragefederal procurementto accelerate adoption of safety- andproductivity-enhancing technologies.Modernizeworkplace safety standardswith flexible, outcome-based rules and voluntary tech-enhanced programs.Directthe Government Accountability Office(GAO) to evaluatepositive impacts of workplace technologies alongside risks.Reshapepublic narratives on surveillanceand create anonregulatory oversight body for workplace technology.Expanddata collectionon adoption, use, and workforce impacts ofnext-generation workplace technologies.Targetstate and local policiesto high-risk contexts, incentivizingprotective and beneficial technology adoption. POLICYMAKERS ARE MISREADING THE WORKPLACETECHNOLOGY MOMENT Globally, researchers are rapidly inventing and developing technologiesthat can help white- and blue-collar workplaces become digitized,automated, and data-driven. Yet, the United States is squandering thistransformation. As shown infigure 1throughfigure 4, corporate adoptionof next-generation workplace technology is low across the United States,the global rate of invention and research toward workplace technologies isgrowing quickly, especially for software applications, and U.S. organizationsthat have adopted workplace technology are mostly limited to largemanufacturing companies. In response to this technological reality, policymakers’ one-dimensionaland skeptical approach has been counterproductive, and will not benefitworkers or workplace technology’s potential. Efforts to label and regulatethese technologies as only surveillance tools will conversely threaten tokeep the private sector’s adoption rate of