•  
  •  

Osgoode Home > Osgoode Digital Commons > Journals > CLLPJ > Vol. 45 (2025) > Iss. 3

 

Comparative Labor Law & Policy Journal

Abstract

Legal protections for workers’ data have usually taken the form of privacy protections designed to deter data processing that is excessive or invasive. Such protections generally fall into the category of liability rules, under which rights can be infringed as long as compensation is provided for the violation. As Guido Calabresi and A. Douglas Melamed have described in “Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral,” liability rules are contrasted with either property rules that prevent the involuntary transfer of rights or inalienability rules that prohibit rights transfers altogether. This article explores how property rules and inalienability rules could provide better protections for employee data rights in certain contexts. Property rules would allow employees to maintain control over their data, requiring employers to negotiate for its use rather than unilaterally collecting and processing it. Inalienability rules could shield particularly sensitive categories of worker data — such as biometric information or private communications — by imposing strict limitations and severe penalties on their collection and use. By rethinking the rules governing employee data, this article advocates for a more equitable approach of mixed regulatory approaches, alternatively providing workers with compensation, greater economic power, or legal barriers to any potential processing.

References

Abraha, H. H. (2022). A pragmatic compromise? The role of Article 88 GDPR in upholding privacy in the workplace. International Data Privacy Law, 12(4), 276–296. https://doi.org/10.1093/idpl/ipac015

Abraha, H. H. (2024). Bargaining over workers’ data rights: How unions and works councils can use collective bargaining to specify workplace data protection norms. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4881551

Ajunwa, I. (2025). AI and captured capital. Yale Law Journal Forum, 134, 372–404. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5119711

Ajunwa, I., Crawford, K., & Schultz, J. (2017). Limitless worker surveillance. California Law Review, 105(3), 735–776. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44630759

Almeling, D. S., Snyder, D. W., Sapoznikow, M., McCollum, W. E., & Weader, J. (2010). A statistical analysis of trade secret litigation in federal courts. Gonzaga Law Review, 45(2), 291–334.

Atkinson, J., & Collins, P. (2024). Algorithmic management and a new generation of rights at work. Institute of Employment Rights. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4853536

Bambauer, J. R. (2024). How to get the property out of privacy law. Yale Law Journal Forum, 133, 1087–1125. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4629539

Bebchuk, L. A. (2001). Property rights and liability rules: The ex ante view of the cathedral. Michigan Law Review, 100(3), 601–639. https://doi.org/10.2307/1290412

Berkun, R. J. (2003). The dangers of the doctrine of inevitable disclosure in Pennsylvania. University of Pennsylvania Journal of Labor & Employment Law, 6(1), 157–178. https:// scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1163&context=jbl

Bodie, M. T. (2021). Trademark’s “Ship of Theseus” problem. Southern California Law Review Postscript, 95, 27–42. https://southerncalifornialawreview.com/2021/11/11/trademarks-shipof-theseus-problem-by-mathew-t-bodie/

Bodie, M. T. (2022). The law of employee data: Privacy, property, governance. Indiana Law Journal, 97(2), 707–754. https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol97/iss2/7

Bodie, M. T., Cherry, M. A., McCormick, M. L., & Tang, J. (2017). The law and policy of people analytics. University of Colorado Law Review, 88(4), 961–1042. https://lawreview.colorado.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/10.-88.4-Bodie_Final.pdf

Brooks, R. R. W. (2002). The relative burden of determining property rules and liability rules: Broken elevators in the cathedral. Northwestern University Law Review, 97(1), 267–317.

Burk, D. L. (2004). Intellectual property and the firm. University of Chicago Law Review, 71(1), 3–20. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclrev/vol71/iss1/2

Calabresi, G., & Melamed, A. D. (1972). Property rules, liability rules, and inalienability: One view of the cathedral. Harvard Law Review, 85(6), 1089–1128. https://doi.org/10.2307/1340059

Citron, D. K., & Solove, D. J. (2022). Privacy harms. Boston University Law Review, 102(3), 793–863. https://www.bu.edu/bulawreview/files/2022/04/CITRON-SOLOVE.pdf

Coase, R. H. (1960). The problem of social cost. The Journal of Law & Economics, 3(October), 1-44. https://www.jstor.org/stable/724810

Cohen, J. E. (2000). Examined lives: Informational privacy and the subject as object. Stanford Law Review, 52(5), 1373–1438. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229517

Collins, P. (2024). Managing technology that manages people: Regulatory strategies for the UK (Working Paper No. 006/2024). University of Bristol Law School. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4987711

Fisk, C. L. (2009). Working knowledge: Employee innovation and the rise of corporate intellectual property, 1800–1930. University of North Carolina Press. https://doi.org/10.5149/9780807899069_fisk

Greene, J. (2021). How rights went wrong: Why our obsession with rights is tearing America apart. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Hollander-Blumoff, R., & Bodie, M. T. (2005). The effects of jury ignorance about damage caps: The case of the 1991 Civil Rights Act. Iowa Law Review, 90(4), 1361–1404. https://ssrn.com/abstract=678201

Jarvis, D., & Westcott, K. (2020, December 7). The hyperquantified athlete: Technology, measurement, and the business of sports. Deloitte Insights. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/technology/technology-media-and-telecom-predictions/2021/athletedata-analytics.html

Johnson, E. E. (2017). Disentangling the right of publicity. Northwestern University Law Review, 111(4), 891–943. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/nulr/vol111/iss4/1

Kaplow, L., & Shavell, S. (1996). Property rules versus liability rules: An economic analysis. Harvard Law Review, 109(4), 713–790. https://doi.org/10.2307/1342135

Katsabian, T. (2019). Employees’ privacy in the internet age: Towards a new procedural approach. Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, 40(2), 203–255. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3152404

Krier, J. E., & Schwab, S. J. (1995). Property rules and liability rules: The cathedral in another light. New York University Law Review, 70(2), 440–483. https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1851&context=facpub

Krier, J. E., & Schwab, S. J. (1997). The cathedral at twenty-five: Citations and impressions. The Yale Law Journal, 106(7), 2121–2147. https://doi.org/10.2307/797163

Lessig, L. (1999). Code and other laws of cyberspace. Basic Books.

Lobel, O. (2018). You don’t own me: How Mattel v. MGA Entertainment exposed Barbie’s dark side. W. W. Norton & Co.

McGeveran, W. (2001). Programmed privacy promises: P3P and web privacy law. New York University Law Review, 76(6), 1812–1854. https://nyulawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/NYULawReview-76-6-McGeveran.pdf

Merges, R. P. (1996). Contracting into liability rules: Intellectual property rights and collective rights organizations. California Law Review, 84(5), 1293–1393. https://doi.org/10.2307/3480996

Merges, R. P. (1999). The law and economics of employee inventions. Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, 13(1), 1–54. https://jolt.law.harvard.edu/articles/pdf/v13/13HarvJLTech001.pdf

OECD & AIAS (2023). Institutional characteristics of trade unions, wage setting, state intervention and social pacts (version 1.1) [Data set]. OECD Publishing.

Ponton, S. (2024). The tragedy of the AI anticommons. University of California Law, Science & Technology Journal, 15(2), 167–201. https://repository.uclawsf.edu/hastings_science_technology_law_journal/vol15/iss2/4

Posner, R. A. (1993). Gary Becker’s contributions to law and economics. The Journal of Legal Studies, 22(2), 211–215. https://doi.org/10.1086/468163

Radin, M. J. (1987). Market-inalienability. Harvard Law Review, 100(8), 1849–1937. https://doi.org/10.2307/1341192

Rose, C. M. (1997). The shadow of the cathedral. The Yale Law Journal, 106(7), 2175–2200. https://doi.org/10.2307/797165

Rose-Ackerman, S. (1985). Inalienability and the theory of property rights. Columbia Law Review, 85(5), 931–969. https://doi.org/10.2307/1122458

Rotenberg, M. (2011). Keynote address: Beyond fair information practices: Assessing progress, exploring new directions. Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review, 20(2), 233–248.

Rothman, J. E. (2019). The right of publicity’s intellectual property turn. Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts, 42(3), 277–319. https://doi.org/10.7916/jla.v43i3.1987

Rowe, E. A. (2020). EBay, permanent injunctions, and trade secrets. Washington & Lee Law Review, 77(2), 553–608.

Samuelson, P. (2000). Privacy as intellectual property? Stanford Law Review, 52(5), 1125–1173. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229511

Scholz, L. H. (Forthcoming). Privacy and the punitive impulse. FSU College of Law, Law, Business & Economics. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4973433

Schwartz, P. M. (2000). Beyond Lessig’s code for internet privacy: Cyberspace filters, privacy-control, and fair information practices. Wisconsin Law Review, 743–788. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.254849

Schwartz, P. M. (2004). Property, privacy, and personal data. Harvard Law Review, 117(7), 2056–2128. https://doi.org/10.2307/4093335

Solove, D. J., & Hartzog, W. (2014). The FTC and the new common law of privacy. Columbia Law Review, 114(3), 583–676. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2312913

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2024, January 23). Union members summary. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm

Download

Request a copy that is accessible using assistive technology (link opens in a new window)

Included in

Law Commons

Share

COinS