The Perils of Algorithmic Hiring and Title VII
Employers are already mining all public information about potential applicants . While the EEOC has held a meeting in 2014 to discuss future guidance , 74 checking an applicant ’ s social media continues to be acceptable practice . Traditionally , a potential employer just usually has a live person review the material . All public information being downloaded into companies ’ robust algorithmic hiring divisions servers and resold to other employment agencies looking to perform searches . Algorithms are complicated beasts manufactured out of hopes , dreams , and past results . They are as unreliable as economic models , throwing correlations at the wall to see what sticks . They work , so employers are going to use them . Google already has the capability to sell all of an individual ’ s search information . Amazon and other sites use an individual ’ s searching data to feed customer ads . Facial recognition systems and voice analysis can already turn a person ’ s look and sound into datapoints to be fed into a system . A phone using Google MAP data is already tracking its location , making a person ’ s driving habits potentially public information .
The best source of change is going to be the EEOC itself . While the EEOC was looking into the issue as of October of 2016 , it remains to be seen if the priorities of this regulatory agency survive the change in administration . Under the new administration , regulations promulgated requiring more transparency in employer hiring practices that allow for disparate impact lawsuits will probably be rolled back . The EEOC would need to promulgate new guidelines forcing employers and employment agencies to ensure transparency with their algorithms . Even with completely transparency , there is little use in finding out a potential employee lost a job because they did not read certain websites , or eat at certain restaurants .
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