World of HR: UK union group wants HR’s use of AI to be regulated, and facial expression detection banned

HR pros in the UK may have to comply with new AI regulations, thanks to a recent proposal from the country’s largest group of unions.

Where in the world? The Trade Union Congress (TUC), which has around 5.5 million members in England and Wales, released a draft bill that would prevent employers from using AI when screening job applicants, and hiring and firing employees, Fortune reported.

The legislation, known as the Artificial Intelligence (Regulation and Employment Rights) Bill, is similar to the AI Act approved by the European Union in 2023, which limits AI systems in the workplace.

The UK bill would require employers to conduct an AI risk assessment and would allow job applicants and employees to request information about AI’s involvement in hiring, monitoring, and firing workers. It would also ban emotion recognition systems in the workplace.

Over 30% of UK employers are already using AI, according to a December 2023 report from IBM. But 77% of UK workers are opposed to employers using AI to make hiring decisions, a TUC and YouGov survey found.

The authors claim that the legislation is needed to protect workers from any potential risks associated with AI in the hiring and firing of employees, according to the TUC legislation overview.

“Other countries are regulating workplace AI so that staff and employers know where they stand. The UK can’t afford to drag its feet and become an international outlier,” Kate Bell, assistant general secretary at TUC, said.

Satellite view. Several recruiting platforms, including Jobvite, Modern Hire, and VidCruiter, use AI to examine applicants’ word choices and gestures in recorded video interviews, according to Fast Company. Yet scholars and worker advocates warn of the negative consequences of using this type of technology in the hiring process.

“We have really seen very little evidence that the tools pick the most qualified candidates. But they save companies a lot of money,” Hilke Schellmann, author of The Algorithm, said in a BBC article about why companies are using AI.

Some 70% of US workers are against using facial analysis technology in the workplace, and 41% oppose using AI to review job applications, according to the Pew Research Center.

While President Biden issued an executive order in October 2023 addressing some of the safety, security, and equity concerns associated with AI, and several bills have been proposed at the federal level, to date most AI legislation has been decided at the state and even local level. In 2023, for example, New York City passed a law establishing guidelines for using automated recruitment tools and mandated that employers be transparent when using AI.