By Jeffrey Dastin and Marisa Taylor
(Reuters) -The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will track employee badge swipes, laptop logins and other data to determine if staff are working from agency offices as required, according to a memo this week, in the latest sign of staff monitoring in the Trump administration.
In an agency-wide email seen by Reuters, the EPA said it was following up on its February 12 notice rescinding remote-work agreements. Most EPA employees have returned to the office, the message said, and failure to comply will result in disciplinary action, up to termination.
The email cited work from unauthorized locations as one basis for penalty and encouraged EPA staff to scan their badges at offices as early as possible in a work day. The message also said failure to follow agency directives could result in discipline.
The badge-tracking initiative follows other efforts by the administration of President Donald Trump to apply technology to government. For instance, Trump appointees have told some EPA managers that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is using artificial intelligence to monitor workers, including looking for language in communications considered hostile to Trump or Musk, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
In a statement, EPA Associate Administrator for Public Affairs Molly Vaseliou said the agency will use “commonsense measures” to “deliver a present workforce with high productivity and high integrity for the American people.”
After publication of Reuters’ Tuesday story, the EPA also acknowledged it was looking at AI to make the agency more efficient, but said it was not using the technology “as it makes personnel decisions in concert with DOGE.” It did not directly address whether it was using AI to monitor worker communications.
“The agency will continue to evaluate the use of AI in its mission,” EPA Chief Information Officer Vaughn Noga said in a separate statement.
Badge monitoring is not yet the norm across the whole federal government. The Food and Drug Administration has not instituted such tracking, a person familiar with that agency said.
Musk has been a proponent of back-to-office work inside government and out. He and spokespeople for the FDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One person familiar with the EPA said the badge tracking showed Musk’s broader influence. “They are really keeping an eye” on staff, this person said. “It’s not kindergarten. These are professionals.”
Two other sources said the EPA did not conduct the same tracking under the prior administration of President Joe Biden, who came to office during the COVID-19 pandemic that saw remote work take off.
The staff email added that time and attendance data will be gathered in additional ways to determine compliance, for instance via time cards. Managers should only attest to attendance that they can verify, it said.
(Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco and Marisa Taylor in Washington; Editing by Kenneth Li and Bill Berkrot)
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