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AI Policy & Governance, Privacy & Data

CDT Partners with Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Principles on the Use of AI in Hiring

CDT is proud to partner with the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights, Upturn, and numerous other civil rights groups in releasing principles on the use of AI in hiring.

As employers face an ever-growing volume of job applications, they are increasingly relying on algorithmic tools to process and select candidates more quickly. While employers may hope that AI will make the hiring process more efficient, AI-driven tools risk perpetuating existing patterns of inequality and foreclosing economic opportunity. CDT is part of a coalition of civil society organizations who are working to raise awareness of these risks, and to ensure that algorithmic hiring tools do not erect artificial barriers to employment.

The hiring principles are intended to guide the vendors who develop these tools, the employers who use them, and policymakers and regulators. Among other considerations, they state that hiring assessments:

(i) must be designed to ensure nondiscrimination;

(ii) should measure traits and skills that are tied to job performance;

(iii) should contain meaningful notice and explanation to candidates as to how they will be assessed;

(iv) should be regularly and thoroughly audited; and

(v) should be subject to meaningful oversight and accountability by regulators.

These hiring principles are a part of CDT’s broader work on AI, which is focused on ensuring that AI is used in a responsible, equitable manner, from the design phase through to implementation. The principles also reflect CDT’s specific project on the impact of algorithm-driven decision making for people with disabilities. In areas ranging from hiring, to benefits determinations, to predictive policing and the use of risk assessments, people with disabilities face disproportionate risks of discrimination. The hiring principles underscore particular ways in which AI-driven hiring tools may impact disabled workers, and highlight responsibilities for employers and vendors to address these risks.

Watch this space for future reports from CDT on these critical issues.

Read the full Civil Rights Principles for Hiring Assessment Technologies.