| Entities | |
| Topics and Issues | Background checks (71) Title VII (1) |
In March 2021, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) launched “an initiative to ensure that artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging tools used in hiring and other employment decisions comply with federal civil rights laws that the agency enforces.”
According to the Commission’s announcement, the new initiative, the EEOC plans to:
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- Establish an internal working group to coordinate the agency’s work on the initiative;
- Launch a series of listening sessions with key stakeholders about algorithmic tools and their employment ramifications;
- Gather information about the adoption, design, and impact of hiring and other employment-related technologies;
- Identify promising practices; and
- Issue technical assistance to provide guidance on algorithmic fairness and the use of AI in employment decisions.
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The new initiative will build on the previous work of the Commission in this area. The Commission has been examining the issue of AI, people analytics, and big data in hiring and other employment decisions since at least 2016. That year, the EEOC held a public meeting on the equal employment opportunity implications of big data in the workplace. Additionally, the EEOC’s systemic investigators received extensive training in 2021 on the use of AI in employment practices.