All regulations
California, USAEffective 1 October 2025

California FEHA AI rules

California Civil Rights Council regulations on automated-decision systems

California's Civil Rights Council brought hiring software squarely inside the Fair Employment and Housing Act. Three things follow. Using a tool that discriminates is unlawful. Anyone running the tool for you counts as the employer too. And the rules name testing as evidence, so it can help you or hurt you in a claim.

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At a glance

Covered systems

Automated-decision systems used in employment

Testing

Evidence, or the lack of it, is relevant either way

Records

Four years, including automated-decision system data

Agency

An agent operating the system is an employer under the Act

Employer size

Five or more employees, the standing FEHA threshold

Enforcement

California Civil Rights Department and private suit

Who has to comply

  • Employers with five or more employees using an automated-decision system in California
  • Staffing agencies and other agents acting for those employers
  • Vendors operating a system on an employer's behalf, who become employers under the Act

What the audit covers

  • Adverse impact across FEHA-protected characteristics
  • Screening criteria that disadvantage candidates with disabilities
  • Personality or game-based assessments that may probe protected traits
  • Quality, recency and scope of testing, which the text weighs alongside the results
  • Retention of system inputs, outputs and selection data for four years

What non-compliance costs

Standard FEHA remedies through the Civil Rights Department and private litigation: damages, injunctive relief and attorney's fees. The regulations make the presence or absence of anti-bias testing directly relevant to liability.

California FEHA AI rules questions

No, and testing will not shield you either. What the rules say is that testing counts as evidence, and so does the absence of it. They also look at how good the testing was, how recent, how wide and what you did about the findings. Old testing, or testing you ignored, can count against you rather than for you.
Any software that makes a hiring decision or plays a real part in one. That covers resume screeners, ranking and scoring tools, job ads targeted so only some people see the role and personality or game-based assessments. What matters is whether the output shapes the decision. A person rubber-stamping the result at the end does not take the tool out of scope.
Yes, and more directly than in most jurisdictions. Anyone doing a job for an employer that the employer would normally do itself counts as an employer under the Act. That holds when the work runs through software. That makes the vendor a principal in its own right rather than a third party the customer has to indemnify.
Employment records have to be kept for four years, and that now includes the data from any hiring software. In practice keep what went in, what came out and the decisions the system made along the way, not only who was finally hired.

Other regulations we audit against

NYC Local Law 144

New York City, USA

The first law anywhere to require an independent bias audit before an automated hiring tool can be used.

Colorado SB 26-189

Colorado, USA

Notice, explanation and human review when automated technology materially influences a consequential decision.

Illinois HB 3773

Illinois, USA

Makes discriminatory AI in employment decisions a civil rights violation, and bans zip code as a proxy for protected class.

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California FEHA AI rules bias audit | VerifyWise