The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued a series of recommendations to AI developers and providers to ensure they are better protecting job seekers’ information rights.

AI is increasingly being used in the recruitment process to save time and money, helping to source potential candidates, summarise CVs and score applicants. If not developed lawfully, these tools may negatively impact jobseekers who could be unfairly excluded from roles or have their privacy compromised.

The ICO audited several providers and developers of AI tools for recruitment and made almost 300 recommendations, such as ensuring personal information is processed fairly and kept to a minimum, and clearly explaining to candidates how their information will be used by the AI tool. The companies accepted or partially accepted all recommendations.

The audit outcomes report summarises the key findings and recommendations from the consensual audits, as well as providing examples of good practice, case studies and lessons learned for both AI developers and recruiters.

Ian Hulme, ICO director of assurance, said: “AI can bring real benefits to the hiring process, but it also introduces new risks that may cause harm to jobseekers if it is not used lawfully and fairly. Our intervention has led to positive changes by the providers of these AI tools to ensure they are respecting people’s information rights.

“Our report signals our expectations for the use of AI in recruitment, and we’re calling on other developers and providers to also action our recommendations as a priority. That’s so they can innovate responsibly while building trust in their tools from both recruiters and jobseekers.”

About the Audits

The ICO audits revealed that some AI tools were not processing personal information fairly – for example, by allowing recruiters to filter out candidates with certain protected characteristics. Others were inferring characteristics, including gender and ethnicity, from a candidate’s name instead of asking for information.

The ICO instructed these providers to collect accurate information directly from candidates and ensure that regular checks are in place to monitor and mitigate potential discrimination.

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The regulator was also concerned that some AI tools collected far more personal information than necessary and retained it indefinitely to build large databases of potential candidates without their knowledge.

The ICO recommended that all candidates must be provided with transparent privacy information, including a clear retention period.

“We are actively working to implement the specific actions agreed with the ICO in our audit plan,” one of the organisations audited said. “For example, we are making sure to provide the relevant information regarding the use of AI in our privacy policies and evaluating the steps taken to minimise bias when training and testing our AI tools.”

Following these audits, the ICO now intends to work with the organisations using these AI tools to build on its understanding of the privacy risks and potential harms of using AI to aid recruitment.