The Personal Data Protection Office has formally asked the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy whether the government plans to introduce rules protecting candidates from algorithmic discrimination in hiring. <\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence used in recruitment can analyze hundreds of documents, video recordings, or social media profiles in seconds. The problem is that the system learns from historical data, which often contains hidden biases. If a company rarely hired women for technical positions in the past, the algorithm may conclude from the data that men are better candidates, meaning a formally neutral selection tool effectively limits the chances of certain groups.<\/p>\n
Added to this is the issue of data scope. The Labor Code clearly states what information an employer may request from a candidate under Article 22^1 of the Labor Code. Meanwhile, modern AI systems analyze much more, allowing them to deduce health status, sexual orientation, or political views based on seemingly innocent data such as speech patterns, tone of voice, or online activity.<\/p>\n
Polish law is not defenseless, but protection is scattered across several legal acts. Candidates and employees can currently rely on three pillars of protection, though none of these acts directly answer what an employer is specifically permitted to do when deploying an algorithm in recruitment.<\/p>\n
In a letter to the Ministry of Labor, the President of the Personal Data Protection Office did not present a ready-made bill, but rather a list of issues that should be included in potential regulations. The key demands focus on transparency, explainability, and human oversight in automated candidate selection processes.<\/p>\n
The Personal Data Protection Office drew upon Article 105a paragraph 1a of the Banking Law as a specific model. This provision regulates automated decision-making regarding bank customers and can serve as a reference point for future labor law solutions, emphasizing transparency, explainability, and human supervision.<\/p>\n
The 2024 European Union Artificial Intelligence Act explicitly classifies systems used for recruitment and candidate selection as high-risk AI categories. Specific obligations apply to both software vendors and employers using them, covering risk management throughout the system’s lifecycle, technical documentation, transparency, and mandatory human oversight.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Article 86 of the AI Act grants every individual the right to obtain a clear and substantive explanation if a decision concerning their legal situation was made based on the results of a high-risk system. While these requirements are already directly binding in the Polish legal order, the lack of national procedural regulations makes their practical application in recruitment uncertain.<\/p>\n
Before parliament adopts any potential amendment to the Labor Code, the Personal Data Protection Office recommends conducting key assessments. Without these analyses, it is difficult to evaluate whether the proposed regulations will genuinely protect candidates while avoiding the paralysis of recruitment processes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Personal Data Protection Office has formally asked the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy whether the government plans to introduce rules protecting candidates from algorithmic discrimination in hiring. What is Algorithmic Discrimination? Artificial intelligence used in recruitment can analyze hundreds of documents, video recordings, or social media profiles in seconds. The problem is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-and-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bizonews.com\/pl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}