Does your organization hire people to work in New York City? If so, check out this overview of the recent New York City Local Law 144.
Full disclaimer – I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. This post is for awareness purposes only, so do your own research and get legal advice as needed!
Starting on July 5, 2023, New York City (NYC) started requiring employers using automated employment decision tools (“AEDT”) to complete yearly bias audits on the tools and post the results of the audits on the career sites.
This law has several notable elements.
- It is unusual for a city to pass this type of employment legislation that is usually handled at the federal level. City-specific regulations such as this one could quickly add up and become burdensome to employers across many locations.
- The definition of an AEDT is very broad. The NYC Law includes automated systems such as applicant tracking systems that are screening resumes within this definition.
- The law requires yearly bias audits on the AEDT systems AND the audits must the completed by an independent auditor (not the tool vendor and not the employer). This requires finding, contracting and paying an independent auditor for every impacted system and sustaining the process and cost of the process every year.
- The nature of a bias audit will also require sharing of sensitive personal and demographic data (gender, race/ ethnicity) between multiple vendors (tool vendor, employer, auditor) which heightens the risk of data leaks.
- The bias audit results must be posted on the career site or otherwise shared with NYC candidates.
Links
For more information, go straight to the source – see links below to NYC Law information.
Landing Page for NYC Law 144 – Start Here