Arkansas
Arkansas Employee Monitoring Laws: Workplace Privacy Rules (2026)
Independently fact-checked against primary sources (last audited August 17, 2026). · Reviewed by the RecordingLaw editorial team. · Law checked current as of August 17, 2026. · 4 primary sources cited on this page. How we verify our legal content
Arkansas has no law requiring employers to notify employees before monitoring their email, internet use, or phone calls. Instead, employee monitoring in Arkansas runs on a mix of federal wiretap law and one narrow state statute: Ark. Code § 11-2-124, which protects employees' personal social media accounts from employer access.
Information last verified on July 9, 2026. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.
This article covers what Arkansas law actually says about an employer's ability to monitor its employees, as distinct from the general rules on recording conversations covered in Arkansas Recording Laws. It focuses on the areas where Arkansas has its own rules: social media password protections, restrictions on video and audio surveillance, and how the state's silence on a general monitoring notice law affects Arkansas employees and employers.
Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses Arkansas state law on employer monitoring of employees, including Ark. Code § 11-2-124 (social media passwords) and Ark. Code § 5-16-101 (workplace video recording), together with the federal ECPA baseline that fills the gap left by Arkansas having no dedicated electronic-monitoring notice statute. It does not re-derive Arkansas's general one-party consent recording rules or its GPS and vehicle-tracking law in depth; for those, see the linked Arkansas recording law and GPS tracking law pages.
How Federal and Arkansas Recording Law Apply to Employer Monitoring
Arkansas is a one-party consent state for recording wire, oral, and electronic communications, meaning only one participant in a conversation needs to agree for a recording to be lawful under state law. This article does not re-derive that framework; for the full rules on consent, penalties, and exceptions, see Arkansas Recording Laws.
A separate federal rule matters more for day-to-day employer monitoring. Under the Wiretap Act, the business-extension exemption in 18 U.S.C. § 2510(5)(a) excludes communications equipment a business furnishes and uses "in the ordinary course of business" from the Act's definition of an interception device, so a business that owns its phone or computer system can monitor communications on that system without needing a party's consent at all. The Eleventh Circuit narrowed that exception in Watkins v. L.M. Berry & Co., 704 F.2d 577 (11th Cir. 1983): an employer can monitor a business call, but once a call is identified as personal, continued listening falls outside the exception, and the employer is expected to stop or rely on spot checks instead. No Arkansas court has adopted a broader employer-monitoring rule than this federal baseline.
Does Arkansas Require Notice Before Electronic Monitoring?
No. Arkansas has not enacted an electronic-monitoring notice statute along the lines of Connecticut's Conn. Gen. Stat. § 31-48d, Delaware's 19 Del. Code § 705, New York's N.Y. Civil Rights Law § 52-c, or Maine's 26 M.R.S. § 620-A. Those four states require an employer to give employees written notice before monitoring computer, phone, or internet use, and some require conspicuously posted signage. Arkansas has no equivalent duty. An Arkansas employer that monitors company email, internet browsing, or phone systems answers only to the federal ECPA baseline described above, plus whatever notice it chooses to give through an employee handbook or acknowledgment form as a matter of policy rather than legal obligation.
This gap is worth naming plainly because compliance blogs sometimes imply a broader patchwork of state notice duties than actually exists. As of this writing, no bill establishing a general Arkansas electronic-monitoring notice law has passed the General Assembly, and a targeted search of 2025 and 2026 session activity found none pending.
Arkansas's Social Media Password Law
Ark. Code § 11-2-124, Arkansas's social media password law (Act 1480 of 2013), prohibits an Arkansas employer from requiring or requesting that a current or prospective employee disclose a username and password to a personal social media account, add a supervisor to the account's contact list, or change the account's privacy settings. Employers also cannot discharge, discipline, or refuse to hire someone for declining to comply, and the protection extends to job applicants as well as current employees.
Compliance write-ups sometimes call this the "Employer Social Media Password Act," but that name appears nowhere in Arkansas law. Act 1480 of 2013 contains no short-title section, and the codified section carries only the heading "Social media accounts of current and prospective employees."
The statute has two significant limits built into it. First, an employer may still view whatever information about an employee is already public on the internet; the law reaches only login credentials and private access, not public posts. Second, if an employee's social media activity is reasonably believed to be relevant to a formal investigation of a violation of law or of the employer's written policies, the employer can require disclosure of the account for that investigation only, and the resulting access cannot be used for any other purpose.
An administrative rule implementing the statute, 010.14.14 Ark. Code R. 001, is administered through the Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing. Neither the statute nor the rule spells out a private right of action for an employee whose credentials were wrongfully demanded, so the practical remedy available to an affected employee is not fully settled under current Arkansas law.
Video and Audio Surveillance in the Arkansas Workplace
Arkansas criminalizes secretly recording someone in a place where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Under Ark. Code § 5-16-101, using a camera or other image-recording device to secretly observe, photograph, film, or videotape a person in a private area, such as a restroom, locker room, or changing area, without consent is a Class D felony. The statute expressly exempts "security monitoring operated by or at the direction of the owner or administrator of a place of business," which is why ordinary, visible workplace security cameras in common areas do not by themselves violate the law.
How far that exemption reaches is untested. The text of subsection (d)(3) is unqualified, and nothing elsewhere in subsection (d) carves out restrooms, changing areas, or cameras placed covertly. Whether an Arkansas court would read an implied limit into the phrase "security monitoring," so that a camera hidden in an employee restroom falls outside it, is an open question: no published Arkansas appellate decision squarely addresses an employer-installed camera in an employee restroom. Because a wrong guess carries felony exposure, employers have practical reason to treat those spaces as off-limits rather than test the boundary. Audio recording of employee conversations is separately governed by Arkansas's one-party consent rule described above; see Arkansas Recording Laws: Workplace and Arkansas Recording Laws: Voyeurism for fuller treatment of both topics.
GPS and Vehicle Tracking
Arkansas closed a long-standing gap in its tracking-device law with Act 600 of 2025, which made it a form of criminal harassment under A.C.A. § 5-71-208 to use a tracking device to determine a person's location or movement without consent and without good cause or legal authority. The statute targets tracking a person, not a piece of property, and its core purpose is stopping covert surveillance of an ex-partner or acquaintance rather than regulating employer fleet management.
Arkansas has no dedicated statute requiring an employer to notify an employee before tracking a company-owned vehicle, and no Arkansas court has yet applied § 5-71-208 to an employer-employee fleet-tracking scenario. For the general rules on GPS and vehicle tracking devices in Arkansas, including the consent principles that typically apply to vehicles a business owns outright, see Arkansas GPS Tracking Laws.
Biometric Monitoring
Arkansas has no employer-specific biometric-privacy statute. Unlike Illinois, which requires written consent before an employer collects a fingerprint or face scan under the Biometric Information Privacy Act, Arkansas treats biometric identifiers only as a protected data category under its breach-notification law, Ark. Code § 4-110-103, which governs what happens after a data breach rather than how an employer may collect a fingerprint or facial scan in the first place. A 2025 bill, SB 258 (the Arkansas Digital Responsibility, Safety, and Trust Act), originally included biometric consent requirements, but those provisions were removed by amendment while the bill sat in the Senate Committee on Transportation, Technology and Legislative Affairs, which returned it with a do-pass recommendation on April 2, 2025. The amended bill then failed on its third reading in the Senate on April 8 and again on April 10, and it died on the Senate calendar when the session adjourned sine die on May 5, 2025. For more on how Arkansas treats biometric data generally, see Arkansas Biometric Privacy Laws.
What to Watch in Arkansas
Arkansas's current framework, one narrow social media statute plus the federal ECPA baseline, has not changed materially since 2013. Connecticut, Delaware, New York, and Maine have each added employer notice duties in the years since, and Colorado adopted an AI-specific hiring-decision disclosure law in 2026, so multi-state employers with an Arkansas workforce should not assume Arkansas will remain the least-regulated state in the group indefinitely. For a look at how other states handle electronic-monitoring notice, social media privacy, and workplace surveillance, see the Employee Monitoring Laws hub.
Disclaimer
This article provides general legal information about employee monitoring law in Arkansas as of July 9, 2026. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Workplace privacy and employment law involve fact-specific analysis; consult an attorney licensed in Arkansas about your specific situation before acting on anything in this article.
Related articles
- Employee Monitoring Laws by State
- Arkansas Recording Laws
- Arkansas GPS Tracking Laws
- Arkansas Biometric Privacy Laws
- United States Recording Laws
Last updated: July 9, 2026. Statutes cited reflect their in-force version as of July 9, 2026.
More Arkansas Laws
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my employer have to tell me if they are monitoring my email in Arkansas?
Not under state law. Arkansas has no electronic-monitoring notice statute like Connecticut, Delaware, New York, or Maine. Your employer only has to follow the federal ECPA baseline, which allows monitoring of business communications on company-owned systems without a separate notice requirement, though many employers give notice through a handbook policy as a practical matter.
Can my employer ask for my Facebook password in Arkansas?
No, not for personal use. Ark. Code § 11-2-124 bars an employer from requiring or requesting your social media username or password, except when your account activity is reasonably believed relevant to a formal investigation of a legal or policy violation. Your employer can still view anything you post publicly.
Can my employer track my personal cell phone in Arkansas?
Arkansas has no statute specifically addressing employer tracking of a personal device. Act 600 of 2025 made nonconsensual tracking of a person a form of harassment under A.C.A. § 5-71-208, and installing tracking software on your personal phone without your knowledge could implicate that law, though it has not been tested in an employment context.
Can my employer put cameras in the break room in Arkansas?
Generally yes, in common areas where employees do not have a heightened expectation of privacy. Ark. Code § 5-16-101 exempts security monitoring operated by or at the direction of a business owner or administrator, and that exemption is written without a restroom or changing-area carve-out. No Arkansas appellate decision has tested whether it would cover a camera hidden in a restroom, locker room, or changing area, so employers have practical reason to treat those spaces as off-limits.
Is it legal for my employer to record my phone calls in Arkansas?
Arkansas's one-party consent rule allows a party to a call, including the employer if it is a participant, to record it. Separately, the federal business-extension exemption in 18 U.S.C. § 2510(5)(a), the ordinary course of business exception, lets an employer monitor business calls on its own phone system, but Watkins v. L.M. Berry & Co. requires the employer to stop listening once a call is identified as personal.
Can I sue my employer for violating the social media password law?
It is unclear. Ark. Code § 11-2-124 does not explicitly create a private right of action, and neither the statute nor its implementing administrative rule spells out what remedy is available to an employee. An attorney licensed in Arkansas can advise on what claims, if any, might apply to a specific situation.
Updates
Corrected the description of Ark. Code 11-2-124, which carries no short title, clarified that the video-voyeurism statute’s business-security exemption is written without a restroom carve-out and has not been tested in court, and fixed the legislative history of 2025 SB 258, which passed committee and died on the Senate calendar at sine die rather than dying in committee.
Independently fact-checked against the cited primary sources; governing law re-checked for recent changes
Governing law re-checked for recent changes
Corrected the source of the employer 'ordinary course of business' monitoring exception: it comes from the 18 U.S.C. 2510(5)(a) business-extension exemption, not the service-provider exception in 2511(2)(a)(i).
Governing law re-checked for recent changes
Reviewed and approved by an editor
The Law Behind This Article
This article rests on the statutory provisions below, held in our own legal record and retrieved from the official source. Tap a section to read the operative text.
Arkansas Code of 1987 Annotated
§ 11-2-124Social media accounts of current and prospective employees — Definitions.In force
(a) As used in this section: (1) “Employee” means an individual who provides services or labor for wages or other remuneration for an employer; (2) “Employer” means a person or entity engaged in business, an industry, a profession, a trade, or other enterprise in the state or a unit of state or…
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-08-31 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at sas.arkansas.gov
§ 5-71-208Harassment.In forcecited in 2 of our articles
(a) A person commits the offense of harassment if : (1) With purpose to harass, annoy, or alarm another person, without good cause, he or she: (A) Strikes, shoves, kicks, or otherwise touches a person, subjects that person to offensive physical contact or attempts or threatens to do so; (B)
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-08-26 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at arkleg.state.ar.us
Cited in 13 court opinions in our collectionLatest citing opinion in our collection: 2026
In the courts (editorial summary, independently checked):Arkansas courts have construed section 5-71-208 in both directions. Rose v. State (2018) affirmed a harassment conviction for offensive touching, inferring purpose to harass from the circumstances, and Hunt v. State (2005) reversed an adjudication because obscene remarks were not shown likely to provoke a violent or disorderly response.
Opinions citing this section in our collection:
- Bates v. Bates (Supreme Court of Arkansas 1990, 303 Ark. 89)“…ault, Ark.Code Ann. §§ 5-13-204 to -207 (1987); harassment, Ark.Code Ann. § 5-71-208 (1987); harassing communications, Ark.C…”
- Potter v. State (Supreme Court of Arkansas 2000, 342 Ark. 621)✓A woman reported that a man had followed her for weeks and was parked near her in a park; the court treated reasonable suspicion of stalking or of harassment carrying danger of forcible injury as enough to justify the stop and frisk, but did not construe the harassment section.
- Rose v. State (Court of Appeals of Arkansas 2018, 558 S.W.3d 415)✓A man grabbed a woman's breast in a convenience store and pulled out a realistic BB gun when she objected; the court affirmed his harassment conviction under section 5-71-208(a)(1) and (4), holding the jury could infer his purpose to harass or alarm from the circumstances.
Identified automatically from the court opinions citing this section — not a ranking of which case controls.
Also relied on in: Arkansas GPS Tracking Laws: Is It Legal to Put a Tracker on a Car? (2026)
United States Code Title 18
§ 2510DefinitionsIn forcecited in 126 of our articles
As used in this chapter— “wire communication” means any aural transfer made in whole or in part through the use of facilities for the transmission of communications by the aid of wire, cable, or other like connection between the point of origin and the point of reception (including the use of such connection in a switching station) furnished or operated by any person engaged in providing or operating such facilities for the transmission of interstate or foreign communications or communications affecting interstate or foreign commerce; “oral communication” means any oral communication uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation, but such term does not include any electronic communication; “State” means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and any territory or possession of the United States; “intercept” means the aural or other acquisition of the contents of any wire, electronic, or oral communication through the use of any electronic, mechanical, or other device.1 So in original. The period probably should be a semicolon.
Official text (excerpt) · last checked 2026-07-28 · Read the full text in our law library · Verify at uscode.house.gov
Cited in 2,382 court opinions in our collectionLatest citing opinion in our collection: 2026
In the courts (editorial summary, independently checked):United States v. New York Telephone Co. (1977) held that pen registers fall outside Title III because they do not acquire the contents of a communication as Section 2510(4) and (8) define interception. Forsyth v. Barr (1994) applied the same definitions, treating the defendant officers as law enforcement officers under Section 2510(7).
Opinions citing this section in our collection:
- Forsyth v. Barr (Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit 1994, 19 F.3d 1527)✓Neighbors tapped an informant's home line and the overheard charges reached Dallas internal affairs; the Fifth Circuit saw no evidence the police defendants intercepted anything and held they were 2510(7) law enforcement officers, so 2517(1) and (2) allowed their use of it.
- Nixon v. Administrator of General Services (Supreme Court of the United States 1977, 433 U.S. 425)“…of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U. S. C. §§ 2510 et seq. 408 F. Supp., at 363 . We…”
- Gannett Co. v. DePasquale (Supreme Court of the United States 1979, 443 U.S. 368)“…of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U. S. C. § 2510 et seq., be preserved prior to the d…”
Identified automatically from the court opinions citing this section — not a ranking of which case controls.
Also relied on in: Surveillance Camera Laws by State (2026 Guide), US Recording Laws by State (2026): All 50 States Explained, Georgia Recording Laws (2026): One-Party Audio, All-Party Video
Search our full record of US law — 2.1 million sections, every state + federal →
Sources and References
- 18 U.S.C. § 2510(5)(a), Electronic Communications Privacy Act (business-extension exemption / ordinary course of business exception)(law.cornell.edu).gov
- Watkins v. L.M. Berry & Co., 704 F.2d 577 (11th Cir. 1983)(law.resource.org)
- 010.14.14 Ark. Code R. 001, rule implementing the Employer Social Media Password Act, Ark. Code Ann. § 11-2-124(labor.arkansas.gov).gov
- Arkansas Code Annotated, official code portal, Arkansas Bureau of Legislative Research(arkleg.state.ar.us).gov
- Act 600 of 2025 (HB1641), Arkansas General Assembly (tracking-device harassment, A.C.A. § 5-71-208)(arkleg.state.ar.us).gov
- Arkansas privacy bill proceeds, but without coverage of AI and biometrics, Biometric Update (April 2025)(biometricupdate.com)
- Arkansas' Social Media Statute: What It Tells Us, What It Doesn't, JD Supra(jdsupra.com)
- SB258 bill status history, 2025 Regular Session, Arkansas General Assembly (committee do-pass 4/2/2025; died on Senate calendar at sine die 5/5/2025)(arkleg.state.ar.us)