I worked at company that required all paper notebooks to be handed in and destroyed. There are entire companies based on destroying sensitive paper documents.

As you see in sibling replies, in many industries where a given hand writable concept has intellectual property value readily assessed in the millions to billions, and/or the deliverable itself may be in written or sketch form, it's quite often true that:

(a) employees aren't allowed to have/use their own paper notebooks in the first place

(b) if they do, then, yes, the notebooks don't leave unless Security reviews (if removal is even allowed)

However, any number of such traditional approaches stop working when remote work is a thing.

Technologies are needed if a firm wishes to retain the same level of awareness of what's happening to its IP while allowing employee flexibility (which, hopefully, firms are learning they should strive to allow).

We expect people to have a labbook per project. They are logged when handed out, and signed back in at the end of the project.

For a science/engineering firm, this sort of arrangement isn't uncommon, because stuff you do in the lab leads to customer deliverables.

Of course, people can also do things electronically, which they increasingly do.

There are jobs where producing a paper notebook is the primary deliverable. Fewer than there were, due to y'know, computers. But it still happens.

It's odd to describe that as confiscation. A lab notebook belongs to the lab, not the researcher, this is understood by both parties. They may or may not have permission to leave the lab with it, but making personal copies of the pages would be espionage.

It's perfectly reasonable to want comparable properties in a paper-replacing device. I can see where you might find that jarring if you haven't been exposed to work conditions where it's normal and expected.

If you can transfer gigabytes of data with a paper notebook then I’m really impressed! But seriously this is similar to banning usb flash drives and the like, it’s not that unusual.

I used to work at a federal contractor. Any paper you bring to the building /never/ leaves again. I liked to keep notes in a legal pad and would just shred them.

This isn't unreasonable or unheard of in some contexts, especially anywhere requiring a security clearance.

Not the OP, but eInk tablets are banned at our work for the same reason, and paper notebooks don't get destroyed.

I one of the reasons is it's easier for a malignant actor to get access to notes without you knowing when it's electronic. At least with a paper notebook you can tell if it's missing.