The New York City council is going to be one of the first cities in the United States to attempt to regulate the use of hiring algorithms as a part of a recent trend that one can see on various levels of the US government to place legal all levels of government to place checks and balances on algorithms and software that shape life-changing decision.

The bill seeks to ensure that companies that use these algorithms, disclose to the candidates that they have been assessed with the software. Parallelly, the companies who create and sell these tools also need to have annual audits to check and ensure that the software isn't biased.

The bill, proposed by the Democratic council member Laurie Cumbo, would require companies to disclose their using of automated employment-decision tools to screen candidates. Vendors of this software will need to conduct a “bias audit” of their products every year and make the results public to their customers.

However, the proposed bill faces push-back from unusual allies since they are questioning the details on how effective the bill will be and how it would operate. Eric Ellman, senior vice president for public policy at the Consumer Data Industry Association, which constitutes credit and background checking firms, thinks the bill will hamper fair hiring processes by burdening companies that run background checks on behalf of the companies.

A few civil rights groups, such as the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, NAACP and New York University’s AI Now Institute, oppose the bill because the proposal may lay the road for software companies to continue their discriminating software, after having passed a fairness audit since the bill buts audit conducting in the hands of the very people who built them. The group also wants provisions to allow individuals to be able to sue such companies who use and make these products, to help enforce the laws.

Surprisingly, New York-based startups who will be directly affected by the new rules have welcomed the bill during a virtual hearing of the City Council’s Committee on Technology in November.

Robert Holden, the chair of the City Council’s Committee on Technology, is concerned about the capacity of NY, as a cash-strapped city government, to define how to scrutinize hiring software. Since the bill, he also said that there has been a lot of industry engagement at the City Council where many industry-representatives have assured him that the industry can be trusted to self-regulate. Albeit these, Holden is clear that more transparency is needed.

The bill was introduced last February and is currently being overseen by the Committee on Technology to decide what goes into the bill. The bill is undergoing a few changes to address concerns before going for a final vote before the NYC council. If passed, the bill will come into effect by January 2022.