AI screening your California applicants? Keep the records for four years.

The short version

Since October 1, 2025, California's civil rights rules cover any tool that makes or helps make a hiring decision. If you have five or more employees, they apply.

Keep hiring records, including the system's data, for four years. A vendor screening applicants for you can count as your agent.

Bias testing isn't required. But proof of testing, or the lack of it, counts in a claim. Ask your vendor.

Sources

Checked on 19 October 2026.

• "A computational process that makes a decision or facilitates human decision making regarding an employment benefit"

• "shall be preserved by the employer or other covered entity for a period of four years from the date of the making of the record or the date of the personnel action involved, whichever occurs later. This includes all applications, personnel records, membership records, employment referral records, selection criteria, automated-decision system data"

• "An agent includes any person acting on behalf of an employer, directly or indirectly, to exercise a function traditionally exercised by the employer or any other FEHA-regulated activity, which may include applicant recruitment, applicant screening, hiring"

• "Relevant to any such claim or available defense is evidence, or the lack of evidence, of anti-bias testing or similar proactive efforts to avoid unlawful discrimination"

The Office of Administrative Law approved the rules on 27 June 2025, effective 1 October 2025. The definition of employer, five or more employees, is in section 11008(e).

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