US hiring laws: what Zentiq does and what you do

Some US hiring laws apply when an AI tool helps you interview candidates. Zentiq's US hiring rules help you meet three of them for your US roles: Illinois' Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act, New York City's Local Law 144 and, from 1 January 2027, Colorado's law on automated decision-making in consequential decisions (SB 26-189).

Zentiq gives no legal advice. This page says what the product does; whether that is enough for you is a question for your own lawyer.

Switch it on#

An owner or admin switches on US hiring rules for AI interviews under Settings → Features (off by default; the rules come with the Pro plan and up, like candidate screening), for the whole organisation or one subject. Each rule then follows the role's location:

A role's location is its market, its state and its New York City mark in the role's set-up. Rules only ever apply to roles in the United States. The Candidates tab then has a US hiring view: candidates' requests with their deadlines, each role's settings, the bias-audit summary and the Illinois report.

Illinois: AI Video Interview Act#

What Zentiq does

• Before the interview, the candidate reads How the AI in this interview works, written from the role itself: what the AI rates, how answers are marked and banded, the must-have questions, what is recorded and what is never rated.
• The candidate gives a separate consent to the AI analysing their interview, in a box of its own, beside the usual agreement to take part. The interview can't start without it.
• The start records which version of each notice the candidate read, a fingerprint of its exact text, when the page was made and when they agreed.
• A role's settings can name the people who may view its interviews. Everyone else on the hiring team stops seeing that role's candidates; owners always can.
• The invitation emails, the outcome emails and the thank-you page after the interview carry the candidate's own link. There they can ask for their interview to be deleted. The request is due in 30 days and, for Illinois roles by default, is carried out automatically on day 30 if nobody acts first. Deletion removes the transcript, any recording and their details from Zentiq; an anonymous score stays so your totals still add up.
• A legal hold pauses a deletion. The candidate is emailed that their request stays open, never the hold's reason.
• The recording's links in a copy of a candidate's data work for 72 hours, and every export of these roles' candidates is recorded.

What you do

• Ask anyone you shared an interview with outside Zentiq to delete their copies when a candidate asks.
• Keys for your own systems (the API) are not limited by a role's viewer list: decide who sees interviews there.
• If you rely only on the AI's analysis to choose who gets an in-person interview, tick that in the role's settings. Candidates are then offered optional race and ethnicity questions, kept apart from their interview, and the Illinois demographic report gives the totals for the 12 months ending on 30 November. Add hires from your own records and send the report to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity by 31 December.

New York City: Local Law 144#

What Zentiq does

• The door and the invitation show the notice: that an automated employment decision tool is used, what it rates, the data kept and for how long, how to ask about it, how to ask for another way to be assessed or an accommodation, and where the bias-audit summary is.
• An interview starts only 10 business days after the notice reached the candidate: by the invitation email, by the email the door sends when they press Email me the notice, or from the day your job posting gave it (record that day in the role's settings). Weekends, US federal holidays and New York State public holidays are not business days. A candidate who tries sooner is told the first day they can start, and is emailed the notice if they never had it. An invitation for a set time, or a deadline, before that day is refused with the reason.
• A link you copy and send yourself carries no notice: the door offers the candidate Email me the notice, and the 10 business days count from then.
• Ask for another way on the door and on the candidate's own page puts the request in your inbox, due in 14 days.
• You enter the summary of your bias audit (its rates as percentages, exactly as your auditor gave them), and Zentiq publishes it on the role's public page, which the notice links to. The view warns when it is more than a year old.

What you do

• Have an independent auditor carry out a bias audit within the year before you use the tool, and enter its summary.
• Give candidates the alternative process or accommodation they ask for, and record what you offered.
• To let candidates start sooner, give the notice in your job posting and record its date.

Colorado: decisions made with the help of AI (from 1 January 2027)#

What Zentiq does

• The door and the invitation tell candidates that an AI system helps make the decision, what data it uses, and what they get if the decision goes against them.
• When you record a decision not to take someone forward and choose to email them, the email gives the main reasons (from the reason you chose and any must-have they missed, never your notes), the role the AI played, the data used, and how to have their data corrected or ask a person to review the decision.
• Their own page takes review and correction requests, due in 30 days in your inbox.
• Candidates' data is kept for your organisation's retention setting. If Colorado's rules require you to keep records for longer, set your retention to match: Zentiq doesn't lengthen it by itself.

What you do

• Email the candidate with a decision against them, within 30 days: Zentiq never emails anyone on its own, and the decision dialog reminds you for Colorado roles.
• Review the decision and correct the data when asked, and record the outcome.

Read the records from your own systems#

Two read-only operations (candidates:read) give your hiring system the records. Neither carries a candidate's message, an open-door request's contact details, a legal hold's reason or any demographic answer, and nothing here is sent by webhook.