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Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) regulations on automated decision systems took effect on October 1, 2025. They apply existing employment anti-discrimination protections to covered systems and selection criteria used to make or help make employment decisions; using AI is not, by itself, unlawful. Employers should identify the tools involved, assess discrimination and disability-related risks, and retain covered employment records—including automated-decision data—for at least four years.
What California’s employment rules cover
The California Civil Rights Council amended FEHA regulations to address automated decision systems and related selection criteria. The California Civil Rights Department (CRD) says the regulations were approved and filed on June 27, 2025, and became effective October 1, 2025. The operative text is the Council’s Final Text of Proposed Employment Regulations Regarding Automated-Decision Systems; the CRD’s rulemaking page records the approval and effective date.
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The rules are about how employment decisions are made, not whether a tool is marketed as “AI.” Under the final text, an automated decision system is a computational process that makes a decision or facilitates human decision-making regarding an employment benefit. The definition includes machine learning, statistical modeling, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. It excludes specified routine technologies—such as word processing, spreadsheets, navigation, web hosting, data storage, firewalls, antivirus software, and spellchecking—when they do not make an employment-benefit decision.
Relevant uses can arise in recruitment, screening, hiring, promotion, and decisions about pay, benefits, or leave. A person acting directly or indirectly on an employer’s behalf to perform a function traditionally exercised by the employer, or another FEHA-regulated activity, may fall within the regulation’s definition of an employer’s agent. A vendor’s role therefore belongs in the employer’s review; outsourcing a tool does not, on its own, settle whether the employer’s use complies.
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Does California regulate AI hiring tools?
Yes, when a system or selection criterion falls within the employment regulations and is used to make or facilitate an employment decision. The central legal risk is discrimination against applicants or employees based on protected characteristics—not the mere presence of automated technology. The regulations address discriminatory treatment and effects associated with automated systems and selection criteria, including proxies that may reproduce or stand in for protected characteristics.
California Government Code section 12920 describes the state policy of protecting people’s opportunity to seek, obtain, and hold employment without discrimination on enumerated grounds. These include race, disability, sex, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, and military and veteran status, among others. An employer’s review should consider the system’s criteria, outputs, data and configuration, as well as how people rely on its recommendations. A human decision-maker’s involvement is not a reason to ignore the tool’s role in the decision.
CRD has offered illustrative examples, not findings about any particular employer: a hiring tool could reproduce features of a historically male-dominated workforce and reject women, while an ad-delivery system could direct cashier advertisements to women or taxi-job advertisements to Black workers. The examples show why employers should examine both a system’s ranking or recommendation and who is reached or excluded by its use.
How to review assessments for disability-related risks
CRD warns that employment assessments using tests, questions, or puzzle games to elicit information about disability may constitute unlawful medical inquiries. Review what an assessment asks, measures, or may infer—not only the vendor’s stated purpose. Separately consider whether the assessment is accessible and whether an accommodation process is available where applicable disability law requires it. The warning about inquiries and the assessment of accommodation obligations are related but distinct questions.
What employment records must employers keep?
CRD states that covered employers and entities must maintain employment records, including automated-decision data, for a minimum of four years. That is the stated retention minimum. The rule’s summary does not establish the following as an exhaustive regulatory checklist, but preserving these materials can help an employer explain and review how a tool was used:
- The system and vendor identity, purpose, version, and relevant configuration changes.
- The jobs, applicant groups, employees, and employment decisions affected.
- Relevant criteria, data inputs, outputs, recommendations, and assessments.
- Records showing how decision-makers used or acted on system results.
A practical employer review
- Inventory decision-related tools. Identify systems that rank, screen, score, recommend, target, or otherwise make or facilitate decisions about applicants or employees. Include vendor products, custom configurations, advertising delivery, assessments, and downstream human review. Apply the final regulation’s definitions and exclusions rather than relying on product labels.
- Map where each tool is used. Record the employment decision and benefit involved—such as recruitment, screening, hiring, promotion, pay, benefits, or leave—and the jobs or groups affected.
- Examine criteria, proxies, and outcomes. Review the selection criteria and proxies, system outputs, and how managers rely on them for potential discriminatory treatment or effects involving protected characteristics. This is a risk-review step, not a claim that the regulations require a particular audit method.
- Check assessment content and access. Determine whether tests, questions, games, or other assessments could elicit disability information, and consider accessibility and applicable accommodation processes.
- Get useful information from vendors. Establish the tool’s purpose, relevant criteria and data, configuration changes, and what records are available. Include delegated employment functions in the review because the regulation’s agent definition reaches people acting directly or indirectly for an employer.
- Set retention controls. Ensure covered employment records, including automated-decision data, are kept for at least four years.
- Assess privacy rules separately. Determine independently whether the business or tool is also subject to California’s CCPA rules for automated decisionmaking technology.
How the FEHA employment regulations differ from CCPA ADMT rules
California has a separate privacy rule set addressing automated decisionmaking technology (ADMT) under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The California Privacy Protection Agency reports that its Board adopted regulations on July 24, 2025, addressing, among other matters, consumer rights to access and opt out of certain businesses’ ADMT use. Those regulations were approved and filed on September 22, 2025, and took effect January 1, 2026. This is a separate framework from the FEHA employment regulations; a business or tool may require analysis under both, depending on the facts.
| Question | FEHA employment regulations | CCPA ADMT regulations |
|---|---|---|
| Main regulator | California Civil Rights Council and California Civil Rights Department | California Privacy Protection Agency |
| Main focus | Discrimination in employment decisions and related employment records | Consumer privacy rights concerning certain uses of ADMT |
| Effective date | October 1, 2025 | January 1, 2026 |
| Practical distinction | Apply employment civil-rights rules to covered systems and selection criteria. | Analyze the separate privacy framework; do not attribute its consumer access or opt-out provisions to FEHA. |
What the rulemaking record does—and does not—show
In a June 30, 2025 release, CRD reported that stakeholder input included more than 40 public comment letters. That figure describes the rulemaking process; it is not a count of affected employers or a measure of system error or discriminatory outcomes. The regulations’ effective dates and the retention minimum above are legal requirements, not study findings.
The dates and obligations described here reflect official state materials available as of October 7, 2026. Later legislative changes are not addressed here; employers should verify current California law when making a compliance decision. This general information is not individualized legal advice.
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