NYC Publishes Final Rules for AEDT Law and Identifies New Enforcement Date

On April 6, 2023, the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection ("DCWP") issued a Notice of Adoption of Final Rule to implement Local Law 144 of 2021, legislation regarding automated employment decision tools ("AEDT Law"). DCWP also announced that it will begin enforcement of the AEDT Law and Final Rule on July 5, 2023. Pursuant to the AEDT Law, an employer or employment agency that uses an automated employment decision tool ("AEDT") in NYC to screen a candidate or employee for an employment decision must subject the tool to a bias audit within one year of the tool's use, make information about the bias audit publicly available, and provide notice of the use of the tool to employees or job candidates. The Final Rule, which follows the DCWP's previous proposals in September and December 2022 and a review of public comments, aims to: The Final Rule clarifies certain phrases within the AEDT Law's definition "Automated Employment Decision Tool." First, "to substantially assist or replace discretionary decision making" means: (1) "to rely solely on a simplified output (score, tag, classification, ranking, etc.), with no other factors considered"; (2) "to use a simplified output as one of a set of criteria where the simplified output is weighted more than any other criterion in the set"; or (3) "to use a simplified output to overrule conclusions derived from other factors including human decision-making."