A Local Law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, in relation to automated employment decision tools

• Authority: New York, NY
• Parent authority: Local governments
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. state and local documents
• Most recent activity: Enacted
• Most recent activity date: 2021-12-11

Risk subdomain coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the risk subdomain are explicitly described.

• Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
• Unequal performance across groups
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the risk subdomain are described.

• Compromise of privacy
• Loss of human agency and autonomy

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has good coverage of approximately 3-4 subdomains, with strong focus on unfair discrimination (1.1), unequal performance across groups (1.3), and lack of transparency (7.4). Coverage is concentrated in discrimination/toxicity and AI system safety domains, specifically addressing employment-related algorithmic bias and transparency requirements.

Sector coverage

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the sector are described.

• Agriculture, Mining, Construction & Manufacturing
• Trade, Transportation & Utilities
• Information
• Finance & Insurance
• Real Estate, Rental & Leasing
• Professional & Technical Services
• Scientific Research & Development Services
• Management, Administrative & Support Services
• Educational Services
• Health Care & Social Assistance
• Arts, Entertainment & Recreation
• Accommodation, Food & Other Services
• Public Administration (excl. National Security)
• National Security

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

This regulation applies broadly across all economic sectors that employ workers or use employment agencies within New York City. The law governs AI use in employment decisions across all industries, making it cross-sectoral in nature. All 14 sectors are potentially governed as they all involve employment practices.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding local law enacted by the New York City Council with mandatory requirements, civil penalties for non-compliance, and formal enforcement mechanisms through designated tribunals and the corporation counsel.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: New York City Council; Council Members Cumbo, Ampry-Samuel, Rosenthal, Cornegy, Kallos, Adams, Louis, Chin, Cabrera, Rose, Gibson, Brannan, Rivera, Levine, Ayala, Miller, Levin and Barron
• Summary: The document is a local law enacted by the New York City Council, with specific council members listed as sponsors in the header.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Deployer
• Entities: employers; employment agencies
• Summary: The law explicitly targets employers and employment agencies that use automated employment decision tools within New York City to screen candidates or employees.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: office of administrative trials and hearings; corporation counsel; department; commission on human rights
• Summary: The law designates the corporation counsel and the office of administrative trials and hearings as enforcement bodies, with authority to initiate proceedings and impose penalties. The commission on human rights is also referenced as having enforcement authority.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: independent auditor
• Summary: The law requires bias audits to be conducted by independent auditors, who serve as monitors of compliance with the tool's fairness requirements. The results must be made publicly available.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Collect and Process Data
• Verify and Validate
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document primarily focuses on the Deploy and Operate and Monitor stages of the AI lifecycle, requiring bias audits before deployment and ongoing transparency obligations during operation. It also implicitly covers Verify and Validate through mandatory bias audit requirements.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• AI Models
• AI Systems
• Task-specific AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly defines and covers 'automated employment decision tools' which are AI systems. It describes these as computational processes derived from machine learning, statistical modeling, data analytics, or artificial intelligence. The document does not mention frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, generative AI, predictive AI, open-weight models, or compute thresholds.