This isn’t happening to me, to a friend. It feels pretty weird and invasive of privacy, but I’m not sure it violates any local (Illinois) or federal laws so take this as curiosity and not like anyone is aiming for a lawsuit.

Anytime my friend or their coworkers has to use the bathroom, they must publicly declare it in writing in a company-wide chatroom. When they return, they must again declare they have returned from the bathroom.

They work at a call center, but there is already a system which prevents them from taking calls unless they accept a new call.

I know Illinois has a bunch of laws around bathroom breaks and we found it was fine to tell a supervisor about breaks. Is this just a weird, invasive practice which doesn’t do more than increase turnover or could my friend bring up it seems to violate some of their rights as an Illinois employee?