Simkins & ElgazarConnecticut's AI Law and Your Hiring Tools: What Employers Owe Now
Since October 1, 2026, Connecticut says using a hiring tool is no defense to a bias claim. Notices start in 2027. What a small employer should do now.
By Maximilian Simkins. Published . 7 min read.
Topics: Connecticut, AI hiring, AI governance, NIST AI RMF, employment law
Since October 1, 2026, a Connecticut employer can't defend a discrimination complaint by saying the software made the call. Connecticut Public Act 26-15 (Senate Bill 5) says using an "automated employment-related decision technology" is no defense, and that the state's civil rights commission or a court may weigh your anti-bias testing instead. Starting October 1, 2027, employers that use these tools in hiring, promotion, discipline or firing also have to tell people in writing before the decision is made.
The law reaches very small employers, and its definition of a covered tool is wider than "AI".
What changed on October 1, 2026?
Two employer rules are already in force.
The first is about discrimination complaints. Section 13 amends Connecticut's main employment discrimination statute, section 46a-60. Using a covered tool "shall not be a defense against a complaint alleging a discriminatory practice". The same section then says the commission or a court "may consider evidence of anti-bias testing or similar proactive efforts to avoid the discriminatory practice, including, but not limited to, the quality, efficacy, recency and scope of such testing or efforts, the results of such testing or efforts and the response thereto." Section 14 adds the same rule for claims based on sexual orientation and civil union status.
That second sentence is worth reading twice. Testing won't make a complaint go away, but the statute spells out what the commission or court may weigh: how good the testing was, how recent, what it covered, what it found, and what you did about it. If you never tested, or tested once two years ago and filed the report, there isn't much to show.
The second rule is about layoffs. Under section 26, an employer that files a federal WARN notice with the Connecticut Labor Department must also say whether the layoffs are "related to the employer's use of artificial intelligence or another technological change." Federal WARN only covers employers with 100 or more employees, so most small companies won't hit this one.
The Governor approved the act on May 27, 2026. It also covers frontier model developers, AI subscriptions and online safety. This article sticks to the employer sections.
Does it apply to a small company?
Probably, if you have even one employee in Connecticut. The discrimination rule sits inside Connecticut's fair employment law, and that law defines an employer as "any person or employer with one or more persons in such person's or employer's employ" (section 46a-51). A five-person firm that screens applicants with software is covered by the October 2026 change, the same as a large company.
The 2027 notice duties apply to a "deployer", which the act defines as "a person doing business in the state" who puts a covered tool into use in Connecticut. If you hire remote workers who live in Connecticut, assume you're in scope and check with counsel.
What counts as a covered tool?
Section 7 defines it as any technology that processes personal data and "uses computation to generate any output," such as a score, ranking or recommendation, when that output is a "substantial factor" in an employment decision. A substantial factor is one that "meaningfully alters the outcome" of the decision.
Nothing in that definition requires machine learning. A hard-coded rule in an applicant tracking system that drops anyone missing a keyword, or anyone who graduated more than a set number of years ago, can qualify.
The act lists what's out: spreadsheets, word processors, spam filters, calculators, databases and similar software, as long as they don't make or materially influence the decision. Tools used only incidentally are out, and so are purely descriptive statistics nobody relies on. Decisions about scheduling, workplace safety and productivity monitoring don't count as an "employment-related decision" under this law.
What will employers have to tell people from October 2027?
Sections 9 and 10 add two notices, and section 11 adds a third if you hold information back.
| Duty | When it applies | What you give |
|---|---|---|
| Interaction disclosure (sec. 9) | A covered tool interacts with an applicant or employee, unless a reasonable person would find that obvious | A plain-language statement that they're dealing with the tool |
| Pre-decision notice (sec. 10) | A covered tool's output is used to make, or is a substantial factor in, an employment decision | Written notice before the decision: that you use the tool, its purpose and the decision, its trade name, the personal data it uses and how, where that data comes from, and your contact details |
| Trade secret notice (sec. 11) | You withhold information as a trade secret | A notice saying you're withholding it and why |
Only the Attorney General enforces these notice rules, and violations count as unfair trade practices. For violations on or before December 31, 2027, the Attorney General may send a notice of violation first and give you 60 days to fix it. The act says sections 8 to 11 create no private right of action. That limit applies to the notice rules only; a discrimination complaint under section 46a-60 still goes through the commission or the courts as before.
A real case: iTutorGroup's age filter
This is a public case, not one of our engagements.
In September 2023 the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) settled its suit against iTutorGroup, three related companies that hired U.S.-based tutors to teach English online to students in China. According to the EEOC's lawsuit, iTutorGroup "programmed their tutor application software to automatically reject female applicants aged 55 or older and male applicants aged 60 or older." The EEOC says the company rejected "more than 200 qualified applicants based in the United States because of their age."
The settlement cost $365,000, paid to the rejected applicants. The decree also required training for the people involved in hiring tutors, a new anti-discrimination policy, and injunctions against discriminating by age or sex and against asking applicants for their birth dates. The EEOC said it would monitor compliance "for at least the next five years".
The iTutorGroup filter was a rule programmed into ordinary application software. Under Connecticut's new definition, a rule like that is a covered tool, and the statute now says outright that using it is no defense. A basic check would likely have exposed it: run a sample of applicants through the filter and compare pass rates by age and sex.
What should an employer do this quarter?
For a small company, the work is knowing what you run and keeping evidence you could hand to someone. The NIST AI Risk Management Framework makes a useful checklist here, because three of its subcategories line up with the Connecticut rules.
- List every tool that touches a hiring or HR decision, including the filters and knockout questions inside your applicant tracking system. NIST AI RMF GOVERN 1.6 asks that "Mechanisms are in place to inventory AI systems".
- Mark which ones are a substantial factor. If a tool can remove someone before a person reviews them, treat it as one.
- Test for bias, and write down what you found and what you changed. The act says the commission may weigh the "quality, efficacy, recency and scope" of testing and "the response thereto." NIST's MEASURE 2.11 asks that fairness and bias "are evaluated and results are documented."
- Ask your vendors what they'll provide. Section 8 requires developers to give deployers the information they need for the 2027 notices, and section 8(c) lets a developer take over your notice duties by contract, as long as the contract will "clearly set forth which of the deployer's duties" it covers. NIST GOVERN 6.1 covers this vendor side: "Policies and procedures are in place that address AI risks associated with third-party entities".
- Draft the 2027 notice now, with each tool's trade name, data and data sources filled in.
- If you file WARN notices, add the AI question to your layoff checklist.
This is a summary of the statute, not legal advice. Have Connecticut employment counsel confirm how it applies to you.
If you want help with the governance side of this, see our AI solutions page: AI governance, policy and documentation for regulated organizations.
Sources
- Connecticut General Assembly, Public Act No. 26-15 (Substitute Senate Bill No. 5), approved May 27, 2026. Sections 7 to 14 and 26.
- Connecticut General Statutes, Chapter 814c, section 46a-51 (definition of employer).
- 29 U.S. Code section 2101 (WARN Act definitions).
- U.S. EEOC, iTutorGroup to Pay $365,000 to Settle EEOC Discriminatory Hiring Suit, September 11, 2023 (EEOC v. iTutorGroup, Inc., et al., Civil Action No. 1:22-cv-02565).
- NIST, Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0), NIST AI 100-1, January 2023. GOVERN 1.6, GOVERN 6.1, MEASURE 2.11.