California approves new AI employment bias safeguards

CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES — California’s Civil Rights Council has won final approval for a package of regulations designed to stop automated hiring tools from perpetuating bias. 

The rules, approved by the Office of Administrative Law on June 27, take effect on October 1, 2025, giving employers three months to review every algorithm, screening test, and résumé-sorting system they use. 

Rules clarify existing antidiscrimination law

The regulations state plainly that an automated-decision system (ADS) violates the Fair Employment and Housing Act if it harms applicants or employees on protected grounds such as race, gender, or disability. 

“These rules help address forms of discrimination through the use of AI, and preserve protections that have long been codified in our laws as new technologies pose novel challenges,” said Civil Rights Councilmember Jonathan Glater. 

Fellow member Hellen Hong called the update “a commitment to protecting Californians from potential employment discrimination posed by the widespread use of automated decision-making systems.” 

Record-keeping and disability protections

Employers and vendors must keep all ADS-related records, including underlying data and test results, for at least four years, matching retention rules for other hiring materials. 

The text also warns that games, puzzles, or personality tests that reveal a disability can constitute an illegal medical inquiry. Key terms such as “automated-decision system,” “agent,” and “proxy” are now defined, closing loopholes about who controls or supplies the technology. 

Next steps for employers

California Civil Rights Department Director Kevin Kish urged businesses to act quickly: “These new regulations on artificial intelligence in the workplace aim to help our state’s antidiscrimination protections keep pace.” 

Companies relying on third-party vendors must ensure tools are validated, regularly audited for disparate impact, and accompanied by human oversight. 

By codifying how decades-old civil-rights statutes apply to 21st-century hiring software, California is again setting the national pace on tech regulation. 

Previously, the state of New York also enforced a law on AI hiring bias, while Virginia is set to regulate high-risk AI systems by 2026.