Fenwick counsel Anna Suh was quoted in the Law360 article “Technology Cases to Watch in 2017” (subscription required).
In its strategic enforcement plan, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission identified potential areas of concern. These include data-based hiring and issues with other popular employment practices in the technology space, such as employing workers not as staff but as independent contractors.
Suh talked to Law360 about the concern over employing an algorithm that accidentally narrows the search for candidates to a very specific and very homogenous pool of recruits when using big data analytics from social media and other publicly available online sources.
“Data analytics is only as good as what people are putting in. If companies and recruiters are approaching it from the possibility of either subconscious or intentional bias, then that's going to have reverberating impacts in terms of what turns up,” Suh said.
Suh also told Law360 that technology law observers are keeping a close eye out for legal cases based on big data analytics recruiting. She mentioned that technology companies and other early adopters are increasingly relying on such techniques in order to remain competitive in recruiting the best and brightest candidates.