Employment Standards Act, 2000, use of artificial intelligence in job postings
Employment Standards Act 2000, S.O. 2000, c. 41, ss. 8.1, 8.4, as enacted by the Working for Workers Four Act, 2024, S.O. 2024, c. 3, Sched. 2, s. 2(1), and Ontario Regulation 476/24 (Rules and Exemptions re Job Postings), ss. 1, 2(1)
In force since .
An AI sector rules rule binding public and private bodies.
- How the hook was established
- express
- What makes it apply
- Place of effect
- Obligation class
- Disclosure
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- If you are an employer that has 25 or more employees on the day you post a publicly advertised job posting, and you use artificial intelligence to screen, assess or select applicants for the position, include a statement in the posting disclosing that you use artificial intelligence for that purpose.
- This duty applies only to an external job posting you advertise to the general public. It does not reach a posting restricted to your existing employees, a general recruitment campaign or help wanted sign that does not advertise a specific position, or a posting for a position whose work is to be performed outside Ontario, or partly outside Ontario where the work outside Ontario is not a continuation of work performed in Ontario.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MEASURE 2.8Risks associated with transparency and accountability – as identified in the MAP function – are examined and documented.
- NIST AI 600-1
- GAI-RISK-07Human-AI Configuration
- GAI-RISK-08Information Integrity
- MIT mitigations Draft
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-DET-021Agent Decision Audit and Explainability
- ETSI EN 304 223
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
Identifiers refer to ETSI EN 304 223 V2.1.1 (2025-12), © ETSI 2025, all rights reserved. ETSI owns the standard; no ETSI text (titles or sentences) is reproduced here. The standard is free to download from ETSI.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureYes
Private right of actionNo
Criminal exposure note
Section 132 makes it an offence, prosecuted under Ontario's Provincial Offences Act, to contravene the Employment Standards Act, 2000 or its regulations, or to fail to comply with an order, direction or other requirement under them; a Part III.1 job-posting contravention, including a failure to include the artificial intelligence disclosure statement required by section 8.4(1), falls within this general offence. On conviction, an individual is liable to a fine of not more than $100,000 or to imprisonment for a term of not more than 12 months or to both; a corporation is liable to a fine of not more than $100,000 on a first offence, not more than $250,000 with one previous conviction under the Act, and not more than $500,000 with more than one previous conviction.
Penalty structure
The $500,000 figure is the ceiling for a corporation with more than one previous conviction under the Act (s. 132(c)(ii)); a corporation's first-offence cap is $100,000 and its one-prior-conviction cap is $250,000, and an individual's cap is $100,000, or up to 12 months' imprisonment, or both. This is the Act's general contravention offence under section 132, not a penalty specific to the artificial intelligence disclosure duty. A separate administrative monetary penalty (notice of contravention) process also exists under section 113, with the amount set by a regulation made under paragraph 16.1 of section 141(1), which is not read, so its content is not described here.
- Rule
- Fixed only
- As of
- Currency
- CAD
- Fixed cap
- 500,000
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
The Director of Employment Standards and employment standards officers appointed under Part XXI of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (Ontario Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development); a prosecution under section 132 proceeds under Ontario's Provincial Offences Act.
What record it asks for
Logging duty
Section 8.4 requires an employer to include a statement in a publicly advertised job posting disclosing that artificial intelligence was used to screen, assess or select applicants; it creates no duty to keep a log, record, or audit trail of that use beyond the statement in the posting itself. Every publicly advertised job posting under Part III.1, including one carrying this disclosure statement, must be retained by the employer, or by another person on the employer's behalf, for three years after the posting is removed from public access, under section 15(7.1) of the Act. That retention duty reaches every publicly advertised job posting, whether or not it discloses artificial intelligence use.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Section 8.4(1) requires an employer that advertises a publicly advertised job posting and uses artificial intelligence to screen, assess or select applicants for the position to include in the posting a statement disclosing that use. The duty binds an employer with 25 or more employees on the day the posting is posted, and a smaller employer is exempt from the whole of Part III.1 under Ontario Regulation 476/24.
That Regulation also supplies the regulation-defined terms artificial intelligence and publicly advertised job posting, the second excluding a general recruitment campaign or help wanted sign not for a specific position, a posting restricted to existing employees, and a posting for work to be performed outside Ontario, or partly outside Ontario where the work outside Ontario is not a continuation of work performed in Ontario.
Section 8.4(2) exempts a posting that meets criteria prescribed by regulation. Every publicly advertised job posting under this Part, including one carrying this disclosure statement, must be retained by the employer for three years after it is removed from public access, under section 15(7.1) of the Act, a duty that reaches every such posting whether or not it discloses artificial intelligence use.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app makes employment decisions.
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