NYC Local Law 144: no automated hiring tool without a bias audit from the past year

Local Law 144 of 2021 governs what New York City calls automated employment decision tools, or AEDTs. Its structure is unusual among AI laws: it does not ban any tool or judge outcomes directly. It makes lawful use conditional on three things being true at once.

First, the tool must have been subject to a bias audit within one year of its use. This is a rolling requirement, not a one-off certification — an audit that was current last year does not make the tool lawful this year. Second, information about that bias audit must be publicly available. Third, the required notices must have been given to the employees or job candidates affected.

The notice timing is where the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection has been most explicit. DCWP revised its guidance slides in June 2023 specifically to clarify that the notice must be provided 10 business days before an AEDT is used — meaning the obligation lands before a candidate is screened, not as a disclosure after the fact.

Enforcement sits with DCWP and began on 5 July 2023. The agency runs a public complaint route: a worker or candidate can report an employer or employment agency that used an AEDT without the required bias audit, without posting a summary of the audit results, or without giving the required notices, and no account is needed to file.

For employers, the practical consequence is that the compliance artefact is the published audit summary. It is the one part of the regime the public — and the regulator — can check without access to the model.