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Choose an AI recruitment platform only after you have mapped where you hire, what candidate data the system uses, and how its outputs affect hiring decisions. Require evidence about data sources and retention, model scope, current audit coverage, candidate notice, accommodation routes, and who will monitor the system after launch. A vendor’s compliance claim or bias audit is not proof that the platform is private, accessible, unbiased, or compliant with every law.
Start with hiring locations, data flows, and decisions
Before comparing vendors, document the locations where the role and candidate are based, the recruiting stages in which the platform will be used, and the data that flows into and out of it. The relevant rules can depend on both geography and what the system does—not simply whether a vendor describes its product as “AI.”
- Map jurisdictions: Record where your organization recruits and where affected candidates reside. Have privacy and legal reviewers identify which local requirements apply to those hiring activities.
- Map each workflow: Identify whether the system transcribes or translates information, scores an assessment, classifies or recommends candidates, ranks applicants, screens résumés, or advances people to the next stage.
- Trace information: List what candidates provide, what the platform obtains from other sources, what it derives, who receives its outputs, and how those outputs are used by recruiters or hiring managers.
- Identify the decision owner: Specify which people review outputs and make or influence hiring decisions. A tool may be within scope even if a human makes the final decision.
For New York City, Local Law 144’s rules cover certain automated employment decision tools (AEDTs) used to screen candidates or employees for employment decisions. The rules include scores, classifications, recommendations, and rankings among possible outputs. They also give an example involving résumé screening and interview scheduling even when the tool does not make the final hiring decision. Confirm coverage for the actual workflow rather than relying on a vendor’s label. The NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) says enforcement began July 5, 2023. The city code database cautions that it may not reflect the latest legislation or rules, so verify current official requirements before relying on them.
Know which legal duties apply—and which do not transfer to the vendor
The official NYC and federal disability guidance below establish useful, concrete procurement checks. They are not a complete privacy-law analysis for every employer, candidate location, or cross-border data flow. Privacy teams and legal counsel still need to assess the actual jurisdictions, data practices, and contracts involved.
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| Area | What the cited source establishes | What to do when selecting a platform |
|---|---|---|
| New York City Local Law 144 | For covered AEDT use, the NYC code requires a bias audit conducted no more than one year before use and public posting, before use, of the latest audit summary and the tool’s distribution date. Covered candidates and employees residing in NYC must receive advance notice at least 10 business days before use. The notice must identify AEDT use and the job qualifications and characteristics assessed, and permit requests for an alternative selection process or accommodation. If data type, source, and the employer’s retention policy are not posted, they must be provided within 30 days of a written request. DCWP describes the law as applying to covered employers and employment agencies. | Confirm whether the planned use is covered, obtain the current audit materials and distribution date, and build notice and request handling into the hiring workflow. Treat the specified data disclosures as minimum questions, not a full privacy checklist. |
| ADA and hiring technology | ADA.gov’s May 12, 2022 guidance says the ADA applies to employment selection and testing, and that employers must ensure their use of hiring technology does not unlawfully discriminate, including when a third party supplies the tool. It advises evaluation before use and regularly during use for disability-related screening effects. The EEOC’s May 12, 2022 announcement identifies risks involving absent accommodation processes, screening out qualified applicants with disabilities who could do the job with or without accommodation, and eliciting disability or medical information in ways that may be prohibited. | Evaluate accessibility and disability-related effects, provide a workable accommodation route, and assign an employer-side owner for ongoing review. The vendor does not take over the employer’s responsibilities. |
Ask for a specific inventory of candidate data
Request a written inventory for each product feature and hiring stage. Do not settle for a broad privacy statement that does not explain what happens to applicant information inside the recruiting workflow.
- What candidate data is collected, and which fields are required, optional, inferred, or derived?
- What are the sources of each data type, including candidate submissions, assessments, recordings, public or third-party sources, and recruiter-entered information?
- Which fields or derived signals affect a score, classification, recommendation, ranking, or other output?
- What is retained, for what purpose and period, and how can the employer configure or request deletion?
- Which parties can access the data or outputs, and what information is available to the employer when a candidate asks about data handling?
For covered NYC use, the city code specifies data type, source, and the employer’s retention policy as information that must be supplied under the conditions described in the table. Ask for these details regardless of whether you expect a candidate request; a vendor’s response should help you establish and operate your own retention policy.
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Establish exactly what the tool does
Ask the vendor to describe the system’s role in plain language and show how its outputs enter a real hiring workflow. “Assistant,” “matching,” or “AI-powered” does not tell you whether a system merely helps handle information or screens and advances applicants.
- Which product, feature, and version will be used for each role and location?
- Does it transcribe or translate, or does it score, classify, recommend, rank, filter, or advance applicants?
- What qualifications or characteristics does it assess, and which inputs influence each output?
- Where in the process can an output change a candidate’s opportunity to proceed? Who can review, override, or challenge it?
- Which roles, locations, workflow stages, and product versions are included in any audit evidence the vendor provides?
NYC’s rules define covered methods in terms of model-generated predictions or classifications where a computer at least partly identifies inputs, relative input importance, or other model parameters. They distinguish simplified outputs such as a score, tag, recommendation, or ranking, and distinguish transcription or translation from systems that screen candidates. Use those distinctions to ask precise scope questions; do not assume a feature is outside review simply because it does not make the final hiring decision.
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Examine the audit, not just the claim that one exists
For a covered NYC AEDT, the bias audit is a defined set of calculations, not a general certification of fairness or privacy. Ask the vendor for the public summary and the underlying scope information needed to decide whether it matches your intended use.
- Coverage and currency: Record the audit date, product and version covered, distribution date, and the roles, populations, and data included. Check that the evidence applies to the feature and configuration you plan to deploy.
- Measures and categories: For selection or classification systems, NYC rules require selection-rate and impact-ratio calculations. The calculations cover separate sex and race/ethnicity categories as well as intersectional categories, with counts for unknown categories. For scoring tools, the rules require the full-sample median score, scoring rates, and impact ratios, with demographic and intersectional calculations.
- Auditor independence: Ask who performed the audit and obtain enough information to assess independence under the NYC rule. Its definition excludes a person or group involved in using, developing, or distributing the AEDT and certain employment or financial relationships.
- Changes since the audit: Ask what product, model, data, or workflow changes have occurred since the audit and how the vendor determines whether the evidence still covers the current system.
- Limitations and follow-up: Ask what the audit does not test, how unknown-category data is handled, what issues were identified, and what remediation or further review followed.
An audit does not establish that a platform is unbiased, accessible, accurate, or compliant with every applicable law. Its value depends on its scope, recency, methods, and fit with the way your organization will use the tool.
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Make notice, accessibility, and accommodation workable
Candidate protections are effective only if the platform and employer workflow can deliver them in practice. For covered NYC use, notice must identify the tool and assessed qualifications or characteristics; candidates must be able to request an alternative selection process or accommodation. Decide how those requests will reach a person who can respond, rather than leaving them in a vendor support queue.
ADA.gov advises employers to assess hiring technologies before use and regularly while in use for effects that may screen out people with disabilities. Consider different disabilities, not only the one most obvious for a particular assessment: a process aimed at one disability group may still disadvantage people with other disabilities. The EEOC also warns about assessments that elicit disability or medical information in ways that may be prohibited.
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- Ask how assessments measure job-relevant skills rather than sensory, manual, speech, or other attributes unrelated to the role.
- Ask how a candidate can request an accommodation or alternative process and what accessible contact route is available.
- Define how requests are routed, who decides on the accommodation, and how the assessment or workflow can be adjusted.
- Review whether notices and request routes are accessible and usable throughout the candidate journey.
- Plan a way to examine whether qualified candidates with disabilities are being screened out, including when a third party built the system.
As EEOC Chair Charlotte A. Burrows put it in the agency’s May 12, 2022 announcement: “New technologies should not become new ways to discriminate.”
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Do not treat selection as a one-time vendor review. Assign an internal owner for notices, data and retention settings, accommodations, audit review, and continued monitoring. The official sources support ongoing evaluation, but they do not set one universal monitoring cadence for every system outside the NYC annual-audit requirement.
Ask vendors to notify you about changes that could affect the system’s inputs, outputs, or use, and agree on who reviews those changes before they reach candidates. Your change-control process should cover model or feature updates, changes in data sources or retention settings, new roles or geographies, audit currency, candidate notices, and observed outcomes. Keep records of what version was used, what review took place, and who authorized continued use.
Use one evidence request for every vendor
For a fair comparison, send each vendor the same request and require answers tied to the product, version, roles, and regions you intend to use. Include these items in the RFP or procurement review:
- Workflow map: Identify the recruiting stages, locations, roles, and decisions affected. Ask the vendor to document how its output is used at each stage.
- Data inventory: Request data types, sources, required and optional fields, derived signals, uses, access, retention settings, and deletion procedures.
- Model description: Ask what the system scores, classifies, recommends, ranks, or advances; what qualifications and characteristics it assesses; and which version will be deployed.
- Audit materials: For covered NYC use, obtain the public summary, audit date, distribution date, scope, calculations, unknown-category treatment, auditor identity and independence information, and a description of subsequent changes or remediation.
- Candidate-facing process: Confirm who can configure and deliver notices, what assessed criteria are disclosed, how candidates can ask questions or request an alternative process or accommodation, and who handles those requests.
- Accessibility and disability review: Request evidence of pre-use and ongoing evaluation, the accommodations the workflow can support, and the process for addressing screening-out effects.
- Governance and changes: Name the employer-side owner, define review responsibilities, and agree how changes to features, data, or workflow trigger reassessment.
- Legal and privacy review: Give privacy and legal reviewers the actual hiring locations, data flows, intended uses, and vendor documentation so they can assess obligations not resolved by the NYC and federal sources summarized here.
Score vendors on the quality and applicability of their evidence, not on a generic promise that the platform is “compliant.” If a vendor cannot explain what data drives a consequential output, show whether audit evidence covers the proposed use, or support an accessible route for candidates, treat that as an unresolved procurement risk.
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