Digital Work Systems (NSW)
In February 2026, the New South Wales government passed the Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Act 2026. This act makes significant changes to the state’s work health and safety system, in response to the increasing use of AI as part of business systems. This page outlines the changes.
Legislation
The Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Act 2026 makes changes to the Work Health and Safety Act 2011.
What are digital work systems?
The legislation defines digital work systems as including the following:
- Artificial intelligence
- Algorithms
- Automation
- Online platforms
Duty of care
The amending legislation creates a digital work system duty as section 21A. This duty requires persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs) to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable that the health and safety of a worker is not is not put at risk from the allocation of work by a digital work system used by the business or undertaking.
PCBUs must consider whether the allocation of work through digital work systems gives rise to any of the following risks:
- excessive or unreasonable workloads
- excessive or unreasonable metrics to assess and track
- performance
- excessive or unreasonable monitoring or surveillance
- unlawful discriminatory practice
It is worth noting that this duty extends only to workers and not to risks that may be caused to other persons who come into contact with digital work systems.
Additional investigator powers
The changes also give additional powers to workplace health and safety investigators (union officials), allowing them to access digital work systems when investigating possible breaches. PCBUs must provide investigators with reasonable assistance to access and assessed digital work systems relevant to suspected breaches.
Implications of these changes
The changes to the work health and safety act 2011 have a number of implications for how businesses will be required to operate.
PCBUs will now be required to ensure that digital work systems do not pose risks to worker health and safety.
They must also explicitly address risks stemming from digital work systems when conducting risk assessments. This includes potential bias in automated decision-making, and psychological harm.
PCBUs will also be required to ensure that AI-enabled HR systems do not result in unreasonable work demands or result in discrimination.
Community responses
The changes have been met with mixed responses.
Unions have welcomed the changes as a necessary update to safety regulation.
Other supporters of the amendments have said that they are represent a recognition that digital work systems involve real risks to workers, and that the legislation gives workers more oversight and a voice in how these systems are used.
Industry and employer groups have been broadly critical of the laws, saying the changes place unwarranted and uncertain compliance burdens on PCBUs.
Critics have also argued that the regulations are an overreach and have the potential to decrease productivity and increase the risk of litigation.
Analysts have noted that New South Wales is the first Australian jurisdiction to explicitly legislate for the risks posed by digital workplace systems and that this is a major shift in workplace governance.
It has been noted that the new investigator powers also pose privacy and confidentiality issues to certain types of businesses. For example, law firms will be required to provide union officials with access to digital work systems that contain confidential information about their clients.
The changes will be subject to a statutory review after they have been in force for 12 months.
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Fernanda Dahlstrom is a writer, editor and lawyer. She holds a Bachelor of Laws (Latrobe University), a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice (College of Law), a Bachelor of Arts (The University of Melbourne) and a Master of Arts (Deakin University). Fernanda practised law for eight years, working in criminal law, child protection and domestic violence law in the Northern Territory, and in family law in Queensland.