Letting an AI hiring tool filter on age or other protected traits
Automating discrimination does not launder it. The algorithm just does the illegal thing faster and at scale.
Not legal advice. Sally roasts behaviour and use-cases in general, never your specific situation, and nothing here replaces a real lawyer. The cases are real; what you do about them is between you and someone licensed to tell you.
Deploying recruiting software that screens candidates on age, or proxies for it, and other protected characteristics.
EEOC v. iTutorGroup, Inc.
No. 1:22-cv-02565 (E.D.N.Y.), settled 2023 Ā· US (EEOC)
iTutorGroup's hiring software auto-rejected female applicants 55+ and male applicants 60+, screening out more than 200 people.
The first EEOC AI-discrimination settlement: $365,000 plus injunctive relief, policy changes, training, and years of monitoring.
A hiring tool automatically rejected female applicants over 55 and male applicants over 60, screening out more than two hundred people. It was caught when someone reapplied with only the birth date changed and suddenly got an interview. A regulator treated it as a straightforward age-discrimination violation, because that is exactly what it was.
Putting the bias in software does not make it neutral. If a filter rejects people based on a protected characteristic, or a proxy like date of birth, it is the same illegal decision it would be if a human made it by hand.
āYour software rejected everyone over a certain age, and the only thing it screened efficiently was your company into a lawsuit.ā
- 01Audit hiring tools for disparate impact before and after deployment, and keep doing it.
- 02Make sure no protected characteristic, or close proxy, is driving screening decisions.
- 03Keep a human accountable for outcomes. The vendor's confidence is not a compliance program.
Not legal advice. General commentary on a use-case, not your situation. Talk to a real lawyer before you act.