Employment: automated decision systems.

Plain English Breakdown

The specific functions that ADS are prohibited from performing are not detailed in the provided summary.

Employment Rules for Automated Decision Systems

The bill sets rules about how employers can use automated decision systems (ADS) in making decisions like disciplining, firing, or deactivating workers and requires employers to provide certain information to workers.

What This Bill Does

• Prohibits employers from using ADS for specific functions related to worker discipline, termination, or deactivation.
• Requires employers to give affected workers a written notice after an ADS is used in making decisions about them.
• Allows workers to request and receive copies of their data that the ADS uses to make decisions affecting them.
• Protects workers from discrimination or retaliation if they assert their rights under this bill.
• Sets penalties for employers who violate these rules, including a $500 civil penalty.

Who It Names or Affects

• Employers in California
• Workers in California

Terms To Know

Automated Decision Systems (ADS)

Computer programs that make decisions without human intervention, often used by employers to manage workers.

Labor Commissioner

A state official responsible for enforcing labor laws and protecting worker rights.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not apply to parties covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement if the agreement includes an explicit waiver of the bill’s provisions.
• Employers are exempt from complying with similar rules under other state laws if they follow this bill's requirements for notice.

Official Summary Text

SB 947, as amended, McNerney.
Employment: automated decision systems.
Existing law requires the Department of Technology to conduct, in coordination with other interagency bodies as it deems appropriate, a comprehensive inventory of all high-risk automated decision systems (ADS) that have been proposed for use, development, or procurement by, or are being used, developed, or procured by, any state agency.
Existing law establishes the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, which is composed of various departments responsible for protecting and promoting the rights and interests of workers in California, including the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, led by the Labor Commissioner, within the Department of Industrial Relations.
This bill would prohibit an employer, as defined, from using an ADS to perform certain functions and would limit the purposes for and way
in which an ADS may be used. The bill would authorize a worker to request, and require an employer to provide, a copy of the most recent 12 months of the worker’s own data primarily used by an ADS to make a disciplinary, termination, or deactivation decision, as specified. The bill would require an employer that
uses
primarily relied upon
an ADS to
assist in making
make
a disciplinary, termination, or deactivation decision to provide the affected worker with a written postuse notice, as specified.
This bill would prohibit an employer from discharging, threatening to discharge, demoting,
suspending, or in any manner discriminating or retaliating against any worker for taking certain actions asserting their rights under the bill. The bill would require the Labor Commissioner to enforce the bill’s provisions, authorize, in the alternative, any worker who has suffered a violation of these provisions to bring a civil action for damages, and authorize a public prosecutor to bring a civil enforcement action, as specified. The bill would set forth specified types of relief that a plaintiff may seek and specified penalties that an employer that violates these provisions is subject to, including a $500 civil penalty.
This bill would also provide that an employer who complies with the requirements related to notice in this bill is not required to comply with any substantially similar provisions under any other state law, except as specified. The bill would not apply to parties covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement if the agreement contains
specified information, including an explicit waiver of the bill’s provisions. The bill would declare that its provisions do not prohibit any employer from complying with regulatory or contractual requirements in the provision of products or services to the federal government, as defined.
The bill would include a statement that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities.
This bill would declare that its provisions are severable.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF