Employment: automated decision systems

The law requires meaningful human review and disclosure when an employer primarily relies on an automated decision system to discipline or terminate a worker. It also bars systems from being used to evade workplace protections or retaliate against workers for exercising legal rights.

What the law does ​

• Bars employers from using automated decision systems to violate labor, safety, employment, or civil-rights laws; infer protected status; or target workers for exercising legal rights.
• Prohibits employers from relying solely on an automated system for discipline or termination, and requires human corroboration when the system is the primary basis for the decision.
• Bars use of an automated output for discipline or termination when it cannot be corroborated or a reviewer finds it inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading.
• Requires a plain-language written notice at the time of a discipline or termination decision primarily based on an automated system, including confirmation of human review and a contact person.
• Gives employees the right to request a meaningful, objective description of their own data used by the system, while requiring others’ personal information to be anonymized.
• Authorizes enforcement by the Labor Commissioner and public prosecutors, with remedies including injunctions, damages, attorney’s fees, and $500 per violation.

Who it affects ​

• Private and public employers, including state and local government entities, labor contractors, and farm and foreign labor contractors.
• Employees subject to discipline or termination decisions primarily based on automated systems.
• Unionized parties whose collective bargaining agreement does not expressly waive the law and provide specified algorithmic-management protections.

Context ​

The law does not apply where specified federal requirements or binding federal contracts require the system for aircraft, national-security, military, space, or defense work.