Law / United States / 
New Jersey
New Jersey Disparate Impact Discrimination Rules, Automated Employment Decision Tools
N.J.A.C. 13:16-3.1(e), 13:16-3.2
In force since .
An AI risk obligations rule binding public and private bodies.
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- If you provide or deploy an automated employment decision tool for use on New Jersey applicants or employees, including a tool that scores, ranks, or classifies candidates or that assesses schedule availability, adequately test it before use to confirm it does not adversely affect a protected class.NIST AI RMFMEASURE 2.11
- If your employment practice or policy that causes a disparate impact relies on an outside vendor's automated tool, take reasonable steps to ensure the vendor's tool is consistent with the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination; relying on the vendor does not by itself excuse a resulting disparate impact.NIST AI RMFMANAGE 3.1
- Provide a mechanism for an applicant to request a reasonable accommodation where an automated tool screens applicants based on a schedule requirement.NIST AI RMFMEASURE 3.3
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MEASURE 2.11Fairness and bias – as identified in the MAP function – are evaluated and results are documented.
- MEASURE 3.3Feedback processes for end users and impacted communities to report problems and appeal system outcomes are established and integrated into AI system evaluation metrics.
- MANAGE 3.1AI risks and benefits from third-party resources are regularly monitored, and risk controls are applied and documented.
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework, and in the NIST AI RMF, line by line beside each duty above. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
What it makes you log
What the log must hold
Decision basis
Logging duty
An employer's use of an automated employment decision tool that has not been adequately tested, with the testing shown to demonstrate the tool does not adversely affect a protected class before its use, may itself be an unlawful disparate impact. An employer defending its use of the tool cannot show the testing was done and reviewed without a record of it.
- Kind
- Implicit
- As of
- Provision
- N.J.A.C. 13:16-3.2(c)3
- Trigger
- automated_decisions
What this law does
Final rules adopted by the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights under the Law Against Discrimination define an "automated employment decision tool" as any software, system, or process that aims to automate, aid, or replace human decision-making relevant to employment, including a tool that analyzes data to generate scores, rankings, predictions, classifications, or recommended actions used in advertising, recruiting, screening, interviewing, hiring, or compensation decisions.
The rules state that using such a tool that has not been adequately tested and shown not to adversely affect a protected class before its use, or that limits or screens out applicants based on a schedule requirement without an accommodation mechanism, may have an unlawful disparate impact; a named example is facial analysis technology used to assess personality traits in virtual interviews.
Where an employer's practice relies on an outside vendor's automated tool, the employer must take reasonable steps to ensure the vendor's tool is consistent with the Law Against Discrimination, so an employer cannot avoid liability by pointing to the vendor. The Law Against Discrimination's own definition of employer reaches both government and private employers, so this employment-scoped duty binds a covered New Jersey government employer the same as a private one.
This automated-tool-specific text is confirmed only for the employment subchapter; the rules' separate housing, real estate, and lending subchapter carries the same general disparate-impact framework but does not name automated decision tools specifically.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app makes employment decisions.
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