Is AI-powered candidate scoring subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)?<\/strong><\/p>\nOriginally passed in 1970, the FCRA governs how consumer data is collected, used, and shared\u2014primarily within the context of credit reporting and background checks.<\/p>\n
The plaintiffs argue that Eightfold crossed into that territory.<\/p>\n
In response to the grievance, the platform allegedly aggregated data on multiple billion individuals from public sources\u2014job boards, profession sites, resume databases, census data, and social media. That data was then used to generate candidate scores and rankings, which could filter applicants out before a recruiter ever reviewed them.<\/p>\n
The problem isn\u2019t just the scoring.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the lack of disclosure, consent, and candidate rights<\/strong>\u2014including the power to see or dispute the data getting used to guage them.<\/p>\nEightfold has denied these allegations, stating that its data comes from candidates themselves or from employer-provided sources. The case continues to be in its early stages.<\/p>\n
But for HR leaders, the consequence isn\u2019t the one thing that matters.<\/p>\n
The signal is.<\/p>\n
When Transparency Meets Reality<\/h2>\n
What keeps coming back to me is that 2020 conversation.<\/p>\n
Because transparency was a central theme.<\/p>\n
Steve talked about \u201cAlgorithmic Transparency\u201d as a core product capability\u2014explaining that each employers and candidates could receive clear insights into how matches were made. He emphasized the importance of testing for bias across gender, age, and ethnicity before deployment.<\/p>\n
It was thoughtful. It was measured. And it reflected where the industry was heading.<\/p>\n
But there was one query I didn\u2019t ask\u2014and truthfully, one that almost all of us weren\u2019t asking on the time:<\/p>\n
Where is all of this data actually coming from?<\/strong><\/p>\nLooking back, the reply was there. Public data sources. Massive aggregated datasets. Machine learning models generating predictions about candidate success.<\/p>\n
What wasn\u2019t clear\u2014and what this lawsuit challenges\u2014is whether or not candidates ever had visibility into that process or control over it.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s the shift we\u2019re seeing now.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t nearly whether AI is fair.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s about whether AI is accountable<\/strong>.<\/p>\nWhy This Matters More Than You Think<\/h2>\n
Here\u2019s the fact HR leaders need to grasp:<\/p>\n
If AI influences a hiring decision, you own that call<\/strong>.<\/p>\nIt doesn\u2019t matter if the model was built by a vendor.
It doesn\u2019t matter if the info got here from sources you\u2019ve never seen.
It doesn\u2019t matter should you can\u2019t fully explain how the scoring works.<\/p>\n
From a legal standpoint, the responsibility still lands with the employer. And that\u2019s where many organizations are exposed.<\/p>\n
Not because they intended harm. But because they trusted the technology without fully interrogating it.<\/p>\n
The Questions We Should Have Been Asking All Along<\/h2>\n
During that 2020 interview, Steve actually shared several questions HR teams should ask AI vendors.<\/p>\n
They were good questions then. They\u2019re essential questions now, together with a couple of more we\u2019ve learned so as to add.<\/p>\n
When evaluating any AI hiring platform, you wish clear answers to:<\/p>\n
\n- How are you testing for bias\u2014and may you show statistical validation, not only methodology?<\/li>\n
- What external data sources are used to guage candidates?<\/li>\n
- Are candidates aware their data is getting used in this manner?<\/li>\n
- Can candidates access, review, or dispute their assessments?<\/li>\n
- Does your system rating or rank candidates before human review?<\/li>\n
- How do you define your role in relation to FCRA compliance?<\/li>\n
- What liability protections\u2014and exposures\u2014exist in our vendor agreement?<\/li>\n
- Can we independently audit your outputs?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
If those questions feel uncomfortable to ask, that\u2019s the purpose.<\/p>\n
Because the chance doesn\u2019t come from asking hard questions.<\/p>\n
It comes from not asking them.<\/p>\n
From Trust to Due Diligence<\/h2>\n
In 2020, I trusted what I heard in that conversation. And to be fair, it reflected where the industry was on the time\u2014optimistic, innovation-driven, and focused on solving bias through technology.<\/p>\n
In 2026, the expectations are different. Trust isn’t any longer enough.<\/p>\n
HR leaders need documentation, transparency, and accountability<\/strong>\u2014not only from their teams, but from every vendor influencing their hiring decisions.<\/p>\nSince the organizations that get pulled into this next wave of AI-related litigation won\u2019t necessarily be those acting recklessly.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll be those who didn\u2019t look closely enough.<\/p>\n
Take heed to the Original Conversation<\/h2>\n
If you ought to hear that 2020 discussion for yourself, Episode 224 of the Workology Podcast\u2014Eliminating Algorithmic Bias in Hiring and Employment<\/em>\u2014you possibly can listen right here.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s still a useful conversation.<\/p>\n
But listening to it now, with the whole lot we\u2019ve learned since, hits very in another way.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Back in 2020, I used to be in the midst of a Workology Podcast series focused on the long run of labor for individuals with disabilities. On the time, \u201cAI in hiring\u201d was still being positioned as the answer to bias\u2014not a possible source of it. I didn\u2019t desire a press release version of that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":339379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6611,52053,19384,6713],"class_list":["post-339378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career-growth","tag-bias","tag-eightfold","tag-interviewed","tag-sued"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339378"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339381,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339378\/revisions\/339381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}